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Healthy Hotel Breakfast Options
The sultry smile of a woman who enjoys a healthy meal.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Dude, this is some kind of gaming blog. I’m here to read about Death Knights and stabbing shit.” Fair point. However, the “stabbing shit” you should really concern yourself with is that stabbing sensation in your chest when your clogged arteries kill you to Death… in the night. See what I did there? (Yes. And it was terrible — Editor.)
Many of us travel, and in about 140 days a slew of Blizzard gamers will be heading to Blizzcon. A large percentage of them are going to forget about little things like showering (Gamer Funk is real, people.) But there’s no reason to start your day off by filling your personal gas tank with garbage. Most hotels provide a continental breakfast buffet of some kind, and it wouldn’t hurt to take advantage of it. You’re going to be spending your day standing in line or sitting through panels. Might as well do it with something healthy in your system.
Because it can get quite unhealthy in the evenings.
In this article over at Self.com, Nutritionist Stephanie Middleberg discusses a few healthy alternatives for the hotel breakfast.
•plain yogurt (prefer it over flavored) with fresh fruit
•oatmeal packet (make with 2% milk or water) and handful of nuts or cinnamon if offered
•2 tbsp. peanut butter + fresh fruit (i.e. banana or apple) OR on toast
•2 hard boiled eggs + fruit
•omelet bar (2 eggs + veggies + cheese OR meat)
•scrambled eggs (1 scoop) plus fruit
•single serve cereal (cheerios or oat bran) with 2% milk. Skip the surgery options!
Your Mom was right – Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Don’t screw it up when you’re travelling!
Blizzcon Tips – Hotels
As you might have guess, seconds after Blizzard announced that Blizzcon 2013 would be taking place on November 8-9, people lost their minds. They were already dropping big bucks to book a room right next door to the Anaheim Convention Center. Yes, that’s right – people have already started booking rooms eight months before the ‘Con. Ticket prices haven’t even been announced yet.
On the one hand, it’s good strategy. Book the room, and if you can’t get a ticket you can either sell the room or just cancel it. It’s good if you have the disposable income to drop 300-400 bucks on a room for the weekend.
But for the majority of people, they are not going to have that luxury. They will hold off on booking a room until they have a Blizzcon ticket which, as we all know, is as elusive as Lindsay Lohan’s sobriety. Allow me to offer a few tidbits of advice that might help take the sting out of the economic anxiety that Blizzcon can cause.
1) Book early. Yes, I know I’ve mentioned that already. But if you’re serious about finding a place to stay, don’t wait until you have a ticket before you start making arrangements. Are you planning on sharing a room? Are you going with a group to help split the cost? Is there anything limiting the distance you are willing to walk to find a hotel? You don’t have to book anything right now, but you can start doing the research. That way, as soon as you have a ticket you can immediately open another browser tab/window and book the room(s). The fastest thing to sell out will be Blizzcon Tickets. The second fastest will be nearby rooms. Be ready with a plan, so that when the time comes you’re not wasting precious minutes trying to figure out where you’re going to stay or who is sharing a room with Snoring Guy.
A little planning may save a life. Specifically, the life of the guy who sounds like a gagging chainsaw.
2) Get off your ass. The first year I went to Blizzcon, I booked a room at damn near last minute. I ended up staying at the Extended Stay America, over half a mile from the Convention Center. It cost about sixty bucks a night, and it was a suite with a fridge, stove, and microwave. It also came with dishes. I saved money by buying food and drink from the nearby convenience stores and nuking up snacks and meals rather than forking over big bucks at a restaurant every time I wanted to eat. If you’re looking to save money, don’t focus on the Convention Center area. You’ve got eight months to drag your ass out of the house and get walking. Train, if you feel the need to label something that you should be doing every day anyway. But if you can manage to drag yourself more than a few hundred feet without collapsing, you open up a whole bunch of cost-saving options.
The old excuses for “needing” somewhere close are coming up bullshit. To cut down on vendor lines, Blizzard has online pre-sales on many of the items that they’ll have for sale right in Bizzcon. Buy your swag early so you don’t need to haul it around at Blizzcon. Got a nervous bladder? Poo at Denny’s if you can’t get yourself to pinch one off at the ‘Con (is there even a bathroom there?) Everybody thinks they need somewhere close. Don’t be lazy and you’ll save money. Goodness knows there’s going to be plenty of other things for you to spend your money on while you’re down there.
A good pair of walking shoes will save you money in the long run. No joke!
It all boils down to planning ahead. Either develop a strategy for finding a room, or develop your body to handle walking a little further than your softer counterparts. You’ll need every edge you can get if you want to win the Blizzcon Wars.
Blizzcon 2013 Dates Announced
Here we go again…
It’s been awhile since I posted, but there’s no way I could let this go without pasting it all over my blog. And as my good buddy The Rock would say…
“Finally Blizzcon has come back to Anaheim!”
Actually jabroni, here’s what The Herc would say. The Herc would say that the People, his People, have demanded it. And there’s no way – AND THE HERC MEANS “NO WAY” – that the People won’t get what they want. They deserve a Blizzcon, and a Blizzcon they will get! Friday, November 8 and Saturday, November 9, 2013 in Anaheim, California. Two days of Blizzcon! Two days of the Best that Blizzard Entertainment has to offer! To the Millions – and Millions – of the Blizzcon Fans, the wait… is finally over.
If you smell… what The Herc… is cooking.
(Editor’s Note: What’s cooking is a whole lot of gimmick infringement.)
No Blizzcon 2012
I first saw the news on Twitter. Just a random short blub where someone mentioned they were disappointed that there would be no Blizzcon this year.
My first thought was “What the fuck?”.
My second thought was “Seriously, what the fuck?”
This had to be a joke, or some kind of mistake. People always read shit into things, make up their own conclusions and chalk it up as fact. That’s why people are stupid. So I did a little research on my own, and unfortunately this wasn’t a mistake. The words from Blizzard’s own mouth:
Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world. Slated to take place in Asia toward the end of 2012, the Battle.net World Championship will host this year’s StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments. Blizzard gamers and eSports fans from around the world will be invited to attend and witness some of the most skilled pro players on the planet battle it out for cash and glory.
We’re excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We’re also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013.
More details about the 2012 Battle.net World Championship and BlizzCon 2013, including specific dates and locations, will be coming in the months ahead.
The emphasis is mine, the bullshit theirs. At least, I thought it was bullshit. Looking on the brighter side, I won’t have to shell out several fistfuls of cash to attend this year. If I really wanted to, I’m sure I could find something to fill the ‘con void.
My Goals For 2012
I’m usually not big on making New Year’s resolutions. That’s mostly due to the word “resolution”, which feels like it should mean “promises I know deep down there’s no way I’ll keep.” Using the word just feels like an escape clause, and I don’t want to submarine myself before I even get out of the gate. I am therefore not making resolutions this year. I’m making optimistic predictions as to what I will accomplish in 2012.
- Keep finding reasons to play WoW. I probably would have gone whole-hog into SWTOR if it hadn’t been for my brother, aka my online enabler. He got me started playing Everquest, then he got me playing WoW. He doesn’t play as much as I do, or as often. He’ll pay for a month, let that month run out, then take a break for a couple of weeks before starting up again. But he’s my brother, and my best friend, and so as long as he finds WoW interesting I’ll be that much more motivated to keep playing. Don’t get me wrong, there are other reasons I enjoy playing the game. I love the gold making aspect, the achievements, getting interesting outfits for my characters to mog. As long as I can set a goal for myself, I can motivate myself to log in.
- Get a serious gaming rig. I might have considered staying with SWTOR if I owned a computer that let me play the game without wanting to put my foot through the monitor. The graphics moved like an old-timey flip-book animation. I had to shut absolutely everything off or set it to the lowest level, then play in a windowed mode at 800×600. I’d get frustrated just struggling through the cutscenes. I don’t have that problem with WoW for the most part, small blessing for ancient graphics engine. But most of my interaction with the game is solo, which leads to…
- Raiding. I don’t even care about the loot. Seriously. I’m not a slave to purples. I just like the fellowship that forms between people who raid together (I hear good things). I’ve played WoW for four or five years now, am a member in one of the largest guilds in the World, and I still don’t feel that camaraderie. That’s mostly my fault, being the antisocial butterfly that I am. This year I want to change that. Also, Deathwing set me on fire once. For that, I want to chop off his balls.
- The AIE Podcast. This is my way to interact with the community that I’ve been a part of for the past few years. I’ve been motivated to do things I’d always wanted to do but put off. Submitting a segment to the AIE podcast is one of them. I don’t do public speaking, and I still feel a bit awkward when I record them, but I’m three segments in (“Ask Jeeves” for the win) and I’m really having fun. A couple people seem to dig it too which helps with the motivation.
- Improve the blog. Better url setup, a better looking page, and hopefully better content. It has taken me a long time to find my blogging voice. I feel like I’m almost there, so this year I want to make it happen. Whatever it is.
- Go to Blizzcon again. Blizzcon 2011 was my second time at the ‘con, and I went Lone Wolf the entire time. I saw many people from a distance, but my heart really wasn’t in it this year. My Mom had just started going through chemotherapy and radiation treatment for brain cancer, and literally an hour after returning home from Blizzcon I had to get in my car and drive over six hours to start college the next day. Oh, and I had to buy a brand new ticket to make that flight, essentially burning the old one. Mind and body were definitely elsewhere. If I get another crack at Blizzcon this year, I want to get more out of it by interacting with more gamers, more guildies, and more people.
How about you? Have you set any goals for yourself in 2012?
Rokk Talk 