Press & Release

Truth be told, my office took pity on me when I began the Gamers for Health campaign way back in 2010, when I was 25 pounds heavier than I am now. They know what a Luddite I am, and they figured they’d help me out by pre-programming my Wii and Wiimote accessories so that all I had to do was plug everything in to get it going. As I’ve chronicled here, even simply plugging the thing in was a *bit* overwhelming for me. In any case, I’ve been happily exergaming on my Wii ever since…

Until yesterday. Something happened. It may have been a power outage. It may have been that my Wii went on strike. Or perhaps the Wiimotes and other accessories wanted a bigger piece of the pie. The outcome, dear readers, was that my Wiimotes and other accessories, like my step, all of a sudden DID NOT SYNC with my Wii! Dum dum Dum. The HORROR!

After unplugging and re-plugging everything possible a few times last night I finally gave up in exasperation 45 minutes later. It was good that I’d run earlier in the day, as I was not to get in any decent exergame workout yesterday. The plug fiasco exhausted me and made me snappy to DH. Enough was enough.

Today was an off day for running and a full-on exergame day, so I knew that the problem needed to be fixed. I looked up nearby stores where I could go and purchase entire new systems this afternoon if the problem could not be fixed in the morning. Basically, I was spent, at the end of my rope, needed to get my workout in and desperate. I guess I'm kind of fried right now.

Then logic kicked in, along with my second cup of coffee. I walked over to my computer, powered it up and typed “wiimote sync issues” and low and behold, Nintendo’s customer service page popped up – who knew?!?! The truly logical thing would have been to look for that first, but the illogical not tech savvy overworked mind digresses. Great! :-D

I marched back in, thanking the Nintendo folks in my mind and feeling all warm and fuzzy about their wonderful patriarchal company, thinking again about what a wonderful community I work in...and tried to sync my Wiimotes…for 25 minutes. Finally it struck me that Nintendo would not have me standing there developing cramps in my thumbs and pointer fingers as I waited for the first stupid waste of an item Wiimote to sync. I trudged grumbling back into my office to look menacingly at my computer. What the HECK was going on?!?! Upon rereading the instructions, a wee bit of wording came forward in bold to my mind’s eye. “Quickly press and release.”

I felt like the Grinch upon hearing all of WhoVille singing on Christmas morning; my heart grew in my chest. Woops. Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy. So I wasn’t supposed to stand there like an idiot innocent holding the red buttons in for 15 minutes straight. Nintendo, as always, was a bit ahead of me.

I sheepishly skulked back into the other room and tried the quick press and release method. Ahem. It worked. In less than 10 seconds.

The moral of the story is (choose one or more):

·         We all make mistakes.

·         When we’re juggling lots of different things in our lives, we make more of mistakes.

·         There is always help online.

·         Stay calm and carry on.

Honey

Honey is one of the elixirs of the gods. It cures allergies, acts as an antiseptic and antibacterial, tastes good, is non-fat and is Winnie the Pooh’s favorite scrumptiousness for his tummy.

Updated: A friend reminded me about the one year rule. Children under one year old MUST NOT EAT HONEY. Honey can contain spores of a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum, which does not effect people aged one year and older, but which can germinate in a baby's immature digestive system and cause infant botulism, a rare but potentially fatal illness. So no honey until your child has reached at least one year of age!

Our rural household has relatively recently become local honey central. While we don’t have our own hives (yet), DH often talks about how we should think more seriously about keeping and harvesting our own hives. Perhaps someday…

Our reading about honey comes as a result of our allergies, which everyone in our family suffers. Friends had told us that a teaspoon of local honey taken every day would cure the allergies within a week. Well, we’ve tried it and it does seem to work. When one has a severe allergy attack, one teaspoon twice a day seems to tackle the problem. Mind you, we have tried Claritin and Claritin D, which also work, but make one tired and can cause drug resistance, especially in young children. The honey taken religiously seems to have a prophylactic effect and minimize, or obliterate, the allergies.

We’re often asked, how local is local? Well, we buy honey from local farmers from our town. We’ve been known to buy some from our county outside our town, but generally the more local the better. Hives from down the lane are obviously the best after one’s own hives. But if one doesn’t have harvestable hives and there are none on one’s road, one should be able to buy some at a local farmers market. Ask around, and ask at different farmers market stalls. The hives that are geographically closer to your particular home are the best, but truth be told, all honey is better than no honey.

Honey has been known for millennia as a useful antibiotic, as well as an antiseptic. It seems that it cures and heals people. So if you’re stuck on a hike without a first aid kit or an aloe plant, but you have some honey with you, smear it on your cut, cover it and it will help. Similarly, if you have an upset tummy, take a bit of honey and it will help sooth your stomach. Perhaps that’s why mothers, including mine, give sick children tea with milk and honey.

Honey tastes darn good, and it’s non-fat too. There are constantly new studies coming out regarding the ill affect of sugar and man-made sugar substitutes. Honey remains an all natural, easily stored, healthy option. There is a reason bears and humans have loved it seemingly forever. It’s *that* good!

And lastly, for those of you with small children, and those who would just like to try it, here is a recipe for Winnie the Pooh’s Scrummy Honey Cake*:

Ingredients:

·         1 cup honey plus 2 tbsp for Pooh's glaze

·         ½ cup unsalted (aka sweet) butter

·         1/3 cup dark brown sugar

·         3 large eggs beaten

·         1.5 cups self raising flour

Recipe:

1.       Preheat oven to 320F.

2.       Butter and line an 8" loose bottomed cake tin.

3.       Cut the butter into pieces and put into pan with honey & sugar.

4.       Melt slowly over low heat.

5.       When mixture looks liquid increase heat and boil for 1 minute.

6.       Leave to cool for 15 - 20 minutes.

7.       Beat the eggs into the melted honey mixture.

8.       Sift the flour in a large bowl and pour in the egg and honey mixture beating until you have a smooth, runny batter.

9.       Pour mixture into cake tin and bake for 50 mins - 1 hour.

10.   A skewer pushed into the center should come out clean.

11.   Turn the cake onto a wire rack.

12.   Warm 2 tbsp honey in a small pan and brush over top of cake for sticky glaze.

13.   Eat. J

*Recipe reprinted from Just-Pooh.com

It’s yummy for your tummy too.

To Blog or Not to Blog...

Image via Wikipedia

So, you may have noticed. I haven’t blogged in the last couple of weeks or so. So what’s up? What’s going on? Is everything ok?

Everything is fine. It’s been a long and intense few weeks - even more than normal, which is saying a lot.

On top of work, family life, working out, and keeping the house relatively presentable, we needed to plan and shop for our child’s second birthday. We figured we’d play it out like a big group play date for entire families so that dads could participate. It was a heck of a lot of fun for everyone. Our child looked like an explosion of glee on having such a lovely group play date at our place with so many friends.

The morning after the birthday party, the Supreme Court decided the so-called “violent video game” case, Brown v EMA. To say that we at ECA, and everyone in the industry, had been waiting for the decision would be an understatement.  People were getting ulcers over the thing. Not me, mind, you, but other folks. I had hope. Clearly everyone, or nearly everyone, in the industry was on IM, SCOTUS blog live feed and multiple phones all morning waiting for the decision to come out and discussing as it was coming out. I know I was! For gamer geeks in the industry, this was the Super Bowl. For lawyer gamer geeks, even more so.

It would also be an understatement to say that life fell into a vortex in the two weeks following the decision. This decision is a game changer on a number of levels. I’ve discussed it a number of places, and will not do so here. But yes, Virginia, this is monumental.

In trying to regroup after the post-decision, we’ve also been working on many other issues at ECA. One of which is S. 978, the anti-streaming bill before Congress, which could criminalize video game streaming. Not so lovely for consumers. Check out our campaign.

Which by way of nothing brings me to current results and working out. I’m still working out. 1-1.5 hours 5 days a week. About half of the workouts are video games and half are jogging. I’m up to 5.2 miles and training for a 10K (6.2 mile) race August 6^th. My weight is presently 25 pounds lost, with my next weight loss goal of 30 lost overall by the third week in August.

How are you all doing?

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