Good News! Chocolate Rations Are Up.

The 625g of chocolate I bought Sunday has some chance of lasting the whole week. And by "some chance", I mean that there's about 50g left, and 3 more days until Sunday. Compare this to back in 1984 when doubleplusgood rations would have been 40g. And I'm not even counting the Dove Bar and Riesen I had at the Palomar, or the daily chocolate I eat at work. I probably eat over 1kg of chocolate per week. Find the newspeak adjective for that.

Strawberry Shortcake

My mom made this for our birthdays, which are a few days apart. It's made from scratch, and was really yummy.

75.7 kg

Though not my lowest weigh-in so far (I hit 75.3 kg one time last month), it's my second lowest, and pretty good news since I've bought 3 bags (>400g each) of chocolate Easter candy. Since Easter is still two weeks away, I'll probably have another bag or two along the way. I also bought a six-pack of Klondike bars cross-branded with Reece's Sunday night, and I've only eaten two of them so far.

Sunday was one of those days where I was tired and hungry, and nothing was going to make me feel better until I binged out. I was pretty tired from Saturday's spinning and Outdoor Fitness Camp workouts, and I didn't really eat a lot that day. (I made rice and falafel for breakfast, then I had brunch with Angie, Kristen and Anna, and only had a personal pizza and a piece of strawberry cake. I had a bowl of popcorn for a snack. For dinner, I had a Rubio's chopped chicken salad, then Won Ton soup.)

So Sunday, I was pretty hungry. I ended up having 3 turkey burgers (115g patties, 42g bun), along with 1kg (2.2 lbs) of sweet potato fries with gravy. But still, around 7pm, I really just wanted to eat a pound of chocolate. My body was telling me it really needed it, so eventually, I got in the car to head towards the store. Then, while driving, I figured I'd head to the poker room instead, which would probably be a better thing. Of course once I got to the Palomar Club, the first thing I did was buy a Dove chocolate bar. Funny thing is that the vending machine then spit out $2.50 of quarters. I took this jackpot to the cage, where they counted out the quarters, and cashed me out for two $1 bills, and a JFK $.50. Just like Vegas. Then, one of the dealers bought something from the machine, and she hit a jackpot. I should have quit then and there, but I got greedy, and bought a pack of Riesen chocolate caramels. No payout. Two candy bars. Then I lost $70, offsetting the $65 I won the night before with Denise at Barona.So, I'm driving home half on tilt, and I hit the grocery store to get the Klondikes and a bag of Easter chocolates. Nothing else. Just a binge run. The Hershey's Eggs are actually a 1 lb 6 oz bag (625g). I had two of the Klondikes, and a bunch of the eggs.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is. Probably, it's not too bad to eat some of the junk out there. Or several bags of it.

The Physics Of Spinning

If you've ever wondered how many calories you burn in an hour of activity, go find a piece of exercise equipment with a power meter. Most Stairmaster and Lifecycles have power meters, or are calibrated to estimate power, and they're probably fairly accurate. Then get on it, warm up, and set it to a manual mode, and watch the power meter to see how much you can output for your workout. I found I can do about 300 Watts for an hour, or 300 Watt*Hours, or 0.3 kWH of energy.

Now, to figure out how many calories your workout burns, you need to convert the kWH energy into kCal (food calories), taking into account the metabolic efficiency of the human body.

So, lets say in spinning I average 300 Watts for an hour, so I burn a 0.3 kWH. (This is equivalent to powering a 100W light bulb for 3 hours, given a 100% generator efficiency.) We'll use the unit conversion factor of 860 kCal/kWH, which you can find on the web. But, since the body isn't 100% efficient in coverting calories to work, we have to apply a metabolic efficiency factor. For an well-trained athelete using the proper equipment, the efficiency factor is about 22-26%. That means for every 1 calorie delivered, he requires 4 calories of food.

So, finally:

calories required = 0.3 kWH * 860 kCal/kWH * (4 food calories / 1 delivered cycling calorie) = 1032

That's why I end up eating 4 turkey burgers, 1 Dryer's Lite ice cream bar, and 14 oz (400g) of Reece's Peanut Butter Easter Eggs.

Southern California Lunch

I was passing through San Clemente this afternoon, and I had to stop at this place for lunch. I picked up a fish burrito, which has been popular around here for the last 10 years or so. When I first heard of a fish burrito, it didn't sound very appetizing. But years later, it's my favourite thing on the menu. It's made with a piece of fried fish, cabbage, and a white sauce. It's really good, and healthy.

Playing Less Poker

I've been good lately, and have avoided playing at the ever-so-convenient Palomar Club by the gym. Yes, I did go on Monday night, lost $23 USD, and left by 21:30. When I got home, I read up on some stuff for my web project. I'm pretty sure you don't want to know about Ruby On Rails, but it's pretty cool. Doing constructive things beats grinding out a little poker profit anytime. I'll try to save the poker sessions only when I need a break.

If you think Ester (the hack formerly known as Madonna) was a meshuganah yenta, someone else was doing a photo-op in front of the Wailing Wall and holding a press conference with Shimon Peres. (watch video <<)

My Kind Of Shoe Shopping

I needed to replace my old Diadora shoes, since the adapter for the SPD cleats are kind of misaligned, and it's been hurting my left knee for a while now. I just ordered these Sidi's from Amazon @ 2am. After getting about +$100 ahead at the Palomar this afternoon, I promised myself to get some new shoes. It was raining this morning, and OFC was called off, so I went to the gym to do some weights, followed by spinning. Then I timed the trip from the gym to the Palomar Club, and it was only 3 minutes, even catching a few red lights. It took a lot longer to get my breakfast burrito from the Roberto's drive-thru next door. I was behind two elaborate walk-up orders, and a stream of cars making the efficient trip up and around the tiny stand. I stood in front and watched them make a dozen orders through the window. When you have a food obsession, you get a certain voyeristic thrill watching the inside view of the process. It probably takes the guy at the grill about 20 seconds to make a burrito. It was better than FoodTv, which I watched inside the casino, after asking John (the floorman) for the remote control. Food porn and poker, can't beat it. Except for walking out while it's still light outside, and/or with some profit.

Sweet Potato Poutine

Just had an idea to make poutine tonite. Gotta luv instant gravy and Canadians, eh? .

Add Soylent To The List of "Bad Manic Ideas"

Ok, there's nothing like real food. Especially a pollo asado burrito from the Roberto's Taco stand right next to the Palomar club, right after spinning, and before sitting down in a "free money" $1/$2-blinds, $100 max buy-in No-Limit Hold'Em game. The Palomar sits in the golden triangle of take-away food, just metres from Roberto's, and two other Mexican take-aways, a Coco's, and a Wendy's (?). They have their own Chinese kitchen somewhere in the back, but it looks like everyone orders from these other places. The waitress (Foo-Foo) just runs orders to these restaurants. She'll hand you the actual menu from Coco's, the full 3-fold plastic laminated one with pictures and prices, and ask what you want. The other night I asked to order from the (in-house) Chinese menu, and she looked suprised. Last night when she handed the Coco's menu to a player at the poker table, I asked, "Foo-Foo, did you steal that from Coco's?". She only understood the "Coco's" part of my question, and asked if I wanted to order something from there.

Ok, I've been playing too much. Since the last time I posted (the +$335 USD night), I've only won another +$35. On the positive side, I've been doing constructive things at home, and I'm working my other web project. All I need to do now is to go clothes shopping :(

Palomar Club

I used to exclude myself from the (long) list of degenerate poker players I know, mainly because there was still one club in San Diego County that I had yet to play in. Honestly, that was a serious badge of honour for me, because I've played a lot of poker over the years, waaaay before even the start of the poker craze on tv. Even by Gambler's Anonymous standards, I've played a lot of poker. Trust me. It's too much to admit.

But still, I could hold my head up high, and truthfully say I'd never been to the Palomar Club. It's just 5 minutes away from the gym in Hillcrest where I work out at 4 times a week. But it's in a dodgy neighbourhood, and it's a tiny room with three tables, so I left the Palomar was for the real degenerates. It was the club of last resort. It was a even a few steps down from the Lucky Lady down the street, which is my club of last resort. But, a few weeks ago, I heard it was getting renovated, from a guy that worked the floor over there. We were playing at the Village Club, sitting around, joking, and having fun in the no-limit game. At first when he said he worked at the Palomar, I gave him some crap about it. But I said no matter how much crap people give him about his club, don't worry, the Village takes the cake. Actually I just started the sentence, and he completed it. He looked around the dump, rolled his eyes, and repeated a few times, "takes the cake".

Anyway, I ended up there tonight, after I sat around the Village Club for 40 minutes waiting for a seat. It's true what they say -- it's crowded right after the first of the month, when everyone receives their check. When I rolled in at 6:30pm, it was already crazy at the Valet, and I talked with the guy parking cars, who just shook his head and talked about these people living month-to-month. Well, check day almost coincided with Friday, so it was something of a witching hour at the Village, and I ended up taking off without playing a hand. The lists on all the games were like 15 people deep when I left.

So I end up looking for the Palomar, just to see what it was really like. I was actually impressed with the renovation. The action was still slow, probably because the word hadn't spread yet, or probably because the place closes at 2am (by ordinance), and the diehards usually want to play all night, so they go to the bigger casinos.

I play in the $1/$2 blind, $100 max buy-in, no-limit game. It's full of these wanna be wise kids wearing hats and sunglasses. It's amazing how they mint these kids at the stereotype factory. Newbies are playing poorly, bad bets and bad calls are made. No one plays impressive poker. Actually, the best guy is an older guy named Irish, who talks in a presumedly Irish, though vaguely suspicious, brogue. He's pretending that he's not looking at his cards, and the kids kind of fall for it. He was winning a lot, and actually had my $500 stake covered. I stayed out of his way, and visa versa. We sat next to each other, and lightly joked, even though we both knew each other's story. I was playing my normal act-loose, trap with the nuts game, and he was gambling a bit more, but often had the best hand. Anyways, I end up +$336, and call it a night. Irish started to lose some of his stack before I left, mixing it up without the best hand. Still, I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing.

Soylent Enchiladas

Soylent is perfect for the Hamburger Helper type recipes that call for one pound of ground meat and one packet of (enchilada|chili|sloppyjoe) mix. I made a batch of enchiladas tonight, and they were fine. I just followed the recipe on the back of the package, and it all worked out. I also used fat-free mozzarella, which is probably a soy product as well. The recipe made 8 enchiladas, and I ate two for dinner. It'll probably make another 3-4 meals.

Now You're Cooking With Soylent

I found the textured vegetable protein in the bulk section of my produce store, and I couldn't resist picking up a kilo for a few D's. I wasn't sure how to cook it, but I figured I could find out about it on the web. Sure enough, this stuff is affectionately called TVP. And yes, it is an extruded food product. It looks like all you do is rehydrate it 2:1 or so, and use it as a meat substitute. I found some recipes, and will probably try the burger first.