Yep, it is. If you’re a geek like me anyway. This week is the annual E3 exposition, devoted to all things videogame. The games we’ll be playing over the next couple of years get shown, as well as the hardware we’ll be playing them on.

This year there’ve already been several interesting announcements, including a major disaster for sony (EA providing online access to its sports games on Microsoft’s XBOX live service) and Nintendo coming with a new handheld. There’ll be plenty more, all starting tomorrow. If gaming is your thing, stay tuned, I’ll cover some of the major and not so major announcements.

Check out this most excellent interior design utility written in flash. Thinking about moving the couch to the other side of the room but not sure how it will go? Use this to check before doing. Or just scope out a well designed flash app with a great interface.

Now this is interesting. Once again, more coverage of the rising incidence of diabetes. What surprised me in this story is that the deaths from complications related to diabetes have exceeded those from complications related to AIDS, yet which disease has a higher profile? Not to take anything away from AIDS activists – clearly they’ve been very effective at raising public awareness about the disease. But equally clear is the fact that the diabetes folks should be paying attention to how they’ve been so successful and working to get the word out. Consider my small observations my contribution to the cause 😉

Just check namestatistics.com and find out. If you follow the link you’ll discover David is #6. I’ve always suspected I was in the top 10 given how many Davids I run into. I think I first clued into this during my Sophmore year in college – there were around 50-60 folks in my fraternity and 5 of us were Davids. How common is your name?

Now this is comedy folks. You might not be aware that Governor Arnold recently sued a company for producing a bobblehead doll of him in full action hero attire, his case being that he owns the rights to reproductions of his likeness. He’s on shaky legal ground at best due to his being a public figure. In response to the case, Fair Use Press has produced a small downloadable book covering the issue. The cover of the book is guaranteed to make you laugh, but be warned it’s not work safe.

[link originally found on the almost always excellent boingboing]

Have you read Watership Down? It’s a wonderful story of a band of rabbits forced to migrate to a new home. A fan of the novel has created a map and extensive collection of photos of the area that inspired Richard Adam’s work. Cool stuff if you’re a fan.

An international team of researchers has concluded that the incidence of diabetes will double by 2030 if something isn’t done to address the increasing adoption of a western diet and the reduction in physical activity that accompanies the western lifestyle. Eat your green veggies and stay away from prepared foods folks, so you don’t end up as a small piece of this statistic.

I need to create a separate ‘health’ topic, I’ll take care of that this weekend.

In honor of the recent remake of the Dawn of the Dead, here’s some quick silly fun to be had staving off an attack of zombies. The movie was much better than I expected it to be and much better than the typical hollywood horror flick. Which is not to say that it was a great movie, but if you were a fan of the original and are partial to zombie flicks like I am, there’s some fun to be had watching the new movie.

So for about 2 years now my body has been a walking science experiment. Every three months I go in for bloodwork and on the basis of the results I adjust the drugs and vitamins I ingest and tinker with my exercise regimen. The goal is to get as close to normal HbA1c numbers, which are a measure of the average amount of Plasma Blood Glucose coursing through my veins. An average healthy person is generally around a 4.6 (glucose of 86). When I was initially diagnosed I was at a 7.4 (glucose of 186). The American Diabetes Association advises one to keep it under 6.2 (glucose of 143), and more progressive physicians will admit that the lower that number the better – even the ADA is hinting that they will be lowering their recommended numbers. For the second time I hit 4.9 (glucose of 97) on my numbers, and this time I did it without any prescription drugs. I seem to have experimented my way into a solution to my condition that makes me almost human normal, without the use of pharmacueticals. I’m actually immensely proud of this, hence this post. Even better though, while going over my numbers with me my doctor told me that I was the number 1 diabetic in the Intermed health system which services southern maine, in terms of my numbers and approach to managing my disease. He went on to talk me out of going back on statins to handle my cholesterol situation, on the basis that from his perspective I’m basically kicking ass and should stick with what I’m doing now – it’s working.

So. Yee fuckin ha! 😉 I can’t cure myself but I can manage it in a manner that makes me basically normal. I’ve concluded that they key contributing factors are:
Diet: low carb and low fat, lots of soy proteins, TONS of green vegetables. I generally eat less than 10g of carbohydrate per meal, with the exception that I don’t count the carbs in ‘safe’ green veggies like brocolli. Since low-carb and low fat means very hungry, I eat some fats, but mostly ‘smart’ healthy fats like those found in nuts (I possibly eat more nuts than any other human being – I calculated recently that I eat about $3.50 worth of almonds alone every day, and I eat walnuts and pecans as well).
Physical activity: I exercise 6 days a week. The most important piece of this is weight lifting – I do 30 minutes of fairly intense weight lifting 3 times a week.

That’s basically it. It took me almost 2 years to figure this out. A couple of folks have asked me to post more in depth examples of the kinds of things I eat, which I’ll do over the coming weeks. But one more thing I’ll add – another key thing I’ve learned – there’s no magic pill. This is not a disease the doctors can cure for you by giving you a few pills and sending you on your way. You need to get off your ass and work. There’s just no exception to this. Weight lifting is more important than cardio-vascular stuff, building muscle mass is what eats the sugars out of the system, but the cardio is important too for the longterm situation so it shouldn’t be neglected either.

Ultimately it’s my own fault for not understanding the consequences of my diet, but occasionally when I read articles like this covering the food industry and the incredible amount of high fructose corn syrup they’re putting in foods, I get pissed. A sample quote:

A study of nearly 100 years of data on what Americans eat show a huge increase in processed carbohydrates, especially corn syrup, and a large drop in the amount of fiber from whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
It parallels a spike in the number of cases of type-2 diabetes, caused by the body’s increasing inability to properly metabolize sugars.

Was I genetically predisposed to come down with type 2 diabetes? It’s hard to say definitively but there’s a strong possibility the answer is yes. Did the food industry push my metabolism over the edge with their over-reliance on high fructose corn syrup and focus on high-carb foods? Again it’s hard to say definitively but there’s a very good possibility the answer is yes. Am I pissed? That I can state definiitively – yes!

The lesson here once again is to watch the food labels and avoid foods laden with high fructose corn syrup. You’d be shocked how much is in the everyday foods you eat.