From Counting Games to Counting Calories

I've gained a lot weight over the past several years and despite my efforts with using video games to help, I have not seen much progress. This is because I have been struggling to commit to these "exercise" games. I really want something like Just Dance to just work but since that game doesn't really teach you how to dance, it's somewhat discouraging to spasm, twitch, and vibrate in front of the screen trying to mimic these professional dancers - even though just merely doing those crazy things is, in itself, a great form of exercise. I have a brief stint with non-gaming yoga programs, thanks to Amazon Prime, and these are easy on my aging body and quite effective. But Amazon got greedy and introduced commercials to their video offerings recently where you have to pay extra money to go commercial free: I stopped doing yoga because the commercials would interrupt the video in the middle of a freaking yoga pose. Just absolutely nasty! And no, I am not going to tell Amazon that it's okay to add this sudden tier of subscription just because they are greedy. The bad thing here is, of course, a lot of people probably did pay the extra cash - the same happened earlier in the video gaming world with the PlayStation Network and eventually, Nintendo's online access. If a majority of Amazon Prime users were more like Personal Computer gamers, Amazon would have cancelled the new subscription tier the same way that Microsoft cancelled paid X-Box Live subscription on the PC and made the service free.

This lady's yoga + HIIT fusion will kick your arse but it felt so good!

...And 14 Years Is Enough

I don't have a lot to show for it, but I am proud of my 14+ years' stint as a livestreaming gamer. Since June 10th of 2010, I have made sure that every single one of my gaming sessions is broadcasted to my streaming platform of choice. Since then, I have accumulated no loyal consistent viewers, and I have always thought that the situation was somewhat amusing. At the end of the day, the result of this lies solely on my shoulders. I stream not to do any kind of performative art; I just want to game and connect with like-minded people, which is something that is probably more sustainable during the earlier days of livestreaming. What kept me afloat in my streaming habit was the idea of archiving my gameplay since viewership has always been nonexistent. Well, I never knew that the day would come when I would sit down, reflect on the situation, and said to myself, "Yeah, it's time to stop."

Everything that begins must come to an end.