I wouldn’t normally post about a webgame, yet I make an exception for this. My Brute is a pretty simple flash game in the RPG/Tamagotchi/Beat-Em-Up style, except that the only decisions you make after character creation is who you’ll fight. Each fight is out of your control, which can be as frustrating as it is a relief not to have to learn some fiddly controls. There’s a pupil system which works as an affiliate system with you earning experience when they grade, hence why I’m plastering my link all over this post. There seems to be plenty of scope to keep players interested and the random upgrades at each level are entertaining if not what you were really after.

Ultimately though this is all bog standard stuff. What really stood out for me was the complete lack of any signup. They don’t need an email address or any details, they don’t want you to create a profile even. The most they ask is for you to add a password to your character if you don’t want anyone else using it. In this day I had almost forgotten that websites don’t have to take your details, it just makes it easier for them to spam you everytime they change something or you haven’t visited their precious site for long enough. If I was to but something from a shop I could pay in cash and hear nothing more from them, yet if I went to the online store I need to create an account and provide all my contact details. The transaction is the same, with the exception of delivery, yet it’s standard practice to have an account for every other site you visit. The security problems alone are gargantuan, since nobody wants a different sign in and password at each place.

Anyway, it seems that for me to like a fun yet fairly standard game more than the competition, all it took was a less intrusive stance to my personal details.

I’ve now been running a new side project called Up The Arse Corner for about 3 weeks. It’s a daily image blog filled with images much like the one above with ambiguous and very possibly sexual suggestion of something not actually happening in the picture.

So far it’s going great, I’ve got plenty of posts and a decent backlog of posts scheduled. However I’m not getting much in the way of feedback yet, with no comments, only a few submissions from friends and the majority of hits still coming from facebook and twitter. At least I haven’t been targeted by any spam yet!

Unfortunately the lack of submissions is reflected in my fairly low traffic so far, a slight pain since so far most of my traffic is by word of mouth. I’ve had a little attention via search engines but very little in the grand scheme of things.  I’ll up the promotion a bit once I’ve got some solid content on the site, the daily updates are great for this and I’ve been slowly climbing several google searches, most importantly I’m currently ranked 6th for any search for ‘up the arse corner’, a good indicator for my site anyway. I’ll know it’s going great when I can drop the corner from that and still be on the first page!

Anyway, my biggest concern with lack of submissions is that this is where a lot of my content is going to come from eventually. At the moment I’m scouring the internet for images but that well is going to dry up eventually and I’ll need more eyes looking. The real skill is going to be balancing growth with input so I can keep the daily updates fresh.

I don’t like many of the protein bars on sale, which is a shame because they’re a convenient way to get extra meals in and keep your metabolism nice and high. There is quite a nice alternative however, at least for anyone without nut allergies! They’re pretty high in calories which is great as a post workout snack when you’re trying to gain muscle, especially since it has a nice combination of high and low GI carbs with a sizable bit of protein. They’re pretty quick to make and keep well for quite a while.

Ingredients:

• 1 jar of peanut butter, crunchy or smooth depending on taste
• 1 cup of oats
• 1 cup of whey protein, i used vanilla but plain works just as well
• 1 handful of mixed nuts
• 1 handful of dates
• 2 tablespoons of set honey

First of all I mix the peanut butter and honey in a microwaveable bowl, then heat for 45 seconds, stir and heat for another 45 seconds. This should produce a nice runny mixture in the bowl.

Next drop the dates and nuts into a blender until there are no big lumps left, and mix into the peanut butter, being careful not to burn yourself if it’s still hot. Finally add the whey protein and oats, and mix until everything is blended. I found this much easier when I stopped trying to do it with a wooden spoon and used my hands to kneed the mixture. The mixture will then hopefully be of a dough like consistency, neither dry nor runny.

Finally, add the mixture into containers. I like to use the plastic ones from old Chinese takeaways but any flat bottom container will do. Put this into a fridge and chill overnight. Once chilled, cut into slices and wrap in either cling film or tin foil and store in the fridge.

Here’s a couple left over from the last batch I made.

If you want you can use a mix of whey proteins, I like to mix fast absorbing whey protein with Micellar Casein protein, combined with the slow and fast carbs from the dates and the oats it gives both an initial insulin boost with plenty of fast protein plus a longer lasting effect. This is great for recovering from a workout as the insulin spike should help get valuable nutrients back into your muscles to help repair them. I get my protein from myprotein.co.uk I find them to be great quality and really good value, they even run a pricematch comparison so if you can beat their prices they’ll match it. If you want to order from them, use the code MP10349 for a 5% discount and I’ll get a little off my future orders, so everybody’s a winner!

At the end of last march I did a 1RM lift day, basically just to find out what the maximum weight I could lift for the big 3 lifts was. The results at the end of march were:

• Bench Press - 100 Kg
• Squat - 142.5 Kg
• Deadlift - 180 Kg

I was very happy with these results, but at the end of July I’ll be doing it all over again to see how much I’ve managed to improve. I’m hoping for:

• Bench Press - 112 Kg
• Squat - 160 Kg
• Deadlift - 200 Kg

I’m not aiming too high because unfortunately my diet is focused on fat loss at the moment, which means diminished gains in the strength department. To limit this I’m going to be keeping my set/reps low to keep as much strength as possible. I usually do a 5×5 scheme, but since this is starting to plateau I’m going to start alternating between a 5×3 and a 3×5 scheme. I’m avoiding 3×3 since the overall volume proved to be too low for me in the past.

Hopefully I can lose at least 5 Kg by the end of July, putting me at about 85kg. This works out at a little over half a kilo a week, which should be fairly attainable. As I’m concentrating on fat loss my calories have been cut, mostly from my carbohydrate intake. This has worked well for me in the past so I’ll be limiting my intake to whatever I get from vegetables. My protein and fat intake is still kept fairly high, and I’m keeping an eye on calorie intake for once. It’s been recommended to me before, but I’m starting a fitday record to keep track of things. All my protein is going to come from whole meat sources and eggs, and I’ll be getting an equal split of fats. To supplement it I’m taking a nice multivitamin and 2 or 3 fish oil caps with each meal.

If I have the energy for it I’ll add in some sprint interval work and maybe even some steady state cardio, but that’d not a definite at this stage.

I’m starting over with this, I’ve deleted the old stuff and I’m just going to focus on stuff relative to me. I’ll update when I feel like updating, and start enjoying this.