My Thoughts on the Biggest Loser Cookbook

April 29th, 2008 by The Break, under Food. No Comments

Recently, I started watching what I eat and working out more.  having to keep track of your calories, fat intake, but distinguishing the different fats, your sodium intake, your portions, and also what can give you protein can be a daunting task, trying to balance everything.  One food item may be good in calories but it’s sodium may be off the charts (as is the case with most packaged foods.)

I became a fan of the show The Biggest Loser, and I began to take the tips that they shared on the show and use them in my nutrition and diet.  I also bought the Biggest Loser Cookbook.  It is a fantastic book for anyone wanting to still eat good food but still be able to watch their weight, and also be able tosee all of the nutritional facts in whole meals, instead of simply just one item, which you mix with multiple other items, so you can never get a true idea what your caloric intake, along with the protein and sodium intake.

It is written by a great lady who also wrote a book about fast food substitutes.  In that book, although the recipies she gives aren’t necessary healthy for every meal, if you are wanting to have fast food items and are craving them, they are healthier alternatives to creating the same type of taste, with less calories etc.

In the Biggest Loser Cookbook, she has complied some of her own recipies along with the recipies of contestants and trainers who have been on the shower.

One of my favorite recipies if the breakfast sausage that you make yourself.  It is really good, and can be used with eggs, in a sausage/egg muffin sandwich (better than mcdonald’s in my opinion) and many other great recipies.

If you are looking to diet or just begin to watch the foods you are eating, then I greatly recommend the Biggest Loser Cookbook.

The New San Jose Sharks Logo

April 28th, 2008 by The Break, under Sports. No Comments

I am a big hockey fan. I used to play roller hockey and ice hockey when I was in high school and my freshman year of college. It got too expensive, but I have always been a fan. I haven’t had cable TV for the past couple of years so I haven’t watched too much hockey. Plus, with the lockout a few seasons ago, there’s barely any hockey on TV during the regular seasons anyway.

Now that I live near San Jose, well not too close, but that’s the closest city with an NHL team, they are my favorite team. And I love their new logo. They did exactly what all teams should od when they have a successful logo. They shouldn’t drastically change everything about the logo. They should make minor tweaks here and there to the logo and make it have the desired effect (meaner looking, more bold, a few minor color changes, etc.) They don’t have to create a whole new design in order for it to look good.

The first thing they did was to change the triangle and start making it closer to an arrowhead. That was a great design change because it make it look more sharp. They also added gold to the shark’s eye, to match the color of the stick, and to also incorporate gold into the jerseys as an accent.

They also made the shark meaner looking. I also like the shoulder patch because it’s the same shark that is in the main logo, but it’s no longer inside the triangle but instead it just has it’s fin curved around.

All in all, the Shark’s new logo is fantastic, but still keeps the brand name very similar to all other merchandise. There are many teams in the NHL who have had 2-3 totally different logos in the past 8-10 years… this is a total shame and kills the brand recognition. The money that they pour into having logos designed could be used for something else, or at least demand a great, time-testable logo.

That’s just my opinion. Go Sharks!

Yahtzee! Poker with dice, or something like that.

April 26th, 2008 by The Break, under Games. No Comments

I like to play games. Board games, card games, dice games, video games, whatever, I like to play games. There are many new games that are coming out that are fantastic games that I will be writing about at some point in this blog. But, today I am going to be writing about the classic game, Yahtzee!

Yahtzee came out in 1956. According to Wikipedia…

“The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations. The dice can be rolled up to three times in a turn to try to make one of the thirteen possible scoring combinations. A game of Yahtzee consists of thirteen rounds during which the player chooses which scoring combination is to be used in that round. Once a combination has been used in the game, it cannot be used again.”

There are many different kinds of of hands that you can get with yahtzee. They are: 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, full house,small straight, large straight, Yahtzee (5 of a kind) and you can take a random count of the dice known as a “Chance.”

You also want to get as many points as you can by getting a lot of one of the 6 numbers on the dice, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. If you get an average of three 1’s, three 2’s, three 3’s, three 4’s, three 5’s, and three 6’s, you get an extra 35 points added to your score.

Also, you can get more than 1 yahtzee per game, although you have to scratch out one of the other categories, but still, 100 extra points vs the maximum of 40 points from another area you’d have to scratch is well worth it, and very lucky if you get another yahtzee! One game my wife got 3 yahtzees! Needless to say she won, and continues to brag about it.

Overall, if you’ve never played Yahtzee, you definitely have to give it a try.