Heatmapping The Home

I did some heatmap tracking on the homepage of The Average Gamer this week. It’s a reasonably small sample size – 199 users – but still have some interesting results. If I let the analytics from this heatmap drive the editorial direction, my new approach would be this:

• Stop doing interviews
• Only preview Triple-A games
• Write more about Kinect

Hmm…

EgoBlog

This is purely a post promoting my own ego. Look away now.

I was on 4Chan again yesterday.

You can find the full image from the OP here.

The Batman thing made me laugh. So did the comments calling me “whore” and “dumb bitch”, but for a completely different reason.

Oh /v/. You so crazy.

Interviewed for the BBC again

Yes, regular reader. Yet again I have failed to adhere to a regular blogging and workout programme. Never mind.

In much more exciting news, I was a guest speaker on BBC Five Live’s Game On show. We talked about games company Valve, Steam, Steam Greenlight, Kickstarter and more.

Yes, I know it airs at 3:30am when no one is listening. Shush. Anyway, I forgot to look it up before and it’s only available through iPlayer for another 6 hours so I figured I should probably blog it here. 

Also, I can’t bear to listen back to it so for all I know they edited me out completely, like another BBC interviewer did last time.

Here it is. Debbie Timmins on the BBC. Probably. The games segment starts at the 2:12 timestamp.

New Workout Programme!

Oh hey, the last post I did here was all about my depression and trying to find new drugs. Well, happy to say that a new combination of Cetirizine (a cheap over-the counter antihistamine a.k.a. Zirtek) and Diprobase (a greasy prescription moisturiser), I now have a way to control my symptoms that doesn’t make me crazy. Hooray!

Or maybe it does because I’ve decided to start a new workout programme. A couple of years ago I took up weightlifting, using the 5×5 programme described over at StrongLifts. I gained a lot of strength from it and highly recommend it as a beginner’s programme. The thing is, it’s based around free weights so you do need a gym with a proper safety bar. I can’t really afford the £40 for a gym with free weights right now, so I’m back to the machines available in my building.

So, my new workout programme is Occam’s Protocol from Time Ferriss’ book 4 Hour Body. You can find all the sciencey logical stuff behind it in the book. As far as I’m concerned, it seems to work and takes very little time so why not try it out for two weeks?

The depressing part was when I did the exercises to work out my starting weights. Ferriss recommends that you try 5 reps of 40kg, then increase by 5kg each set to work out your 5-rep max. I couldn’t even make 40 kg :S

Still my 5-rep max was 35kg, giving me a starting weight of 25kg on the close-grip supinated pull-down. My starting weight on the shoulder press was a feeble 7.5kg.

Oof.

Something about side-effects

So a few months back I realised that my allergy medications have actually been giving me mild-to-moderate depression for the past two years. Since then, life has a been a weird struggle, readjusting to the ups and downs that come with being a normal human being.

I remember ridiculous things from my teens that I thought I was over, like the time that one guy said this but I thought he meant THAT and oh god, the shame. Over the past few years I’ve no longer felt that faint tinge of embarrassment on remembering incidents like that. I thought maybe I was finally growing up and getting over that kind of stupid shit. Nope, turns out I’ve just been a drug-induced emotional cripple.

So, on figuring out that the hours I spend staring into space thnking about how useless I am are actually caused by medication, the challenge becomes finding a way to control my symptoms while remaining functional.

Loratadine was the drug that helped me breathe better but brought the depression on so slowly that I didn’t notice. Fexofenadine makes me hate everyone and want to hurt myself, with the added bonus that it doesn’t actually control my symptoms. Atarax does, but it also puts me to sleep within 90 minutes of taking one, which rather defeats the purpose of symptom-controlling medication. Benadryl is the latest one and so far, the most effective. It’s a pity really that it also makes me want to hurt myself as well as the sweaty-armpit strangers I have to share a train with during these summer journeys.

Since learning that these feelings come from meds and not myself, I find myself approaching them very differently. I used to sit around staring at the wall or watching shows on Netflix that I wasn’t really enjoying, just to distract myself. I’d think about how useless I was and wonder when I became such a pointless human being.

Now it’s become something to power through, trying to just get on with life while my liver clears the crap from my system. Like the worst kind of hangover – not bad enough to stay in bed but makes achieving anything a hundred times harder than it should be. Everything is overshadowed by “What’s the point? Why even bother? It’s just another fuck-up anyway. Stop wasting your time”

It’s been been 16 hours since my last anti-histamine. I don’t like this at all.

Edit: 7 hours later and I am feeling much more like a normal human being. I have also become one of those smelly-armpit strangers you have to share a train with.

Outlining

As I am now a world-famous writer*, I thought this would be a good time to share my process with those of you still struggling. Here’s insight into how I plan my articles.

Follow my lead and you too could someday change hearts and minds through the sheer power of your prose.

*Translation: have a blog

Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Today I read an article on writing tips from real authors. One of those tips was to keep a diary, so here I am. I’m not sure why that particular author regrets not keeping a diary. Maybe he’s losing his memory. Perhaps he means we should keep one of those diaries that log everything we did that day so that in 30 years time we can retrace our steps all the way back to that fateful conversation that – unbeknownst to us at the time – change the entire course of history.

It’s fucking hot today. I did some transcription and now I’m going to do some more. I also sent some emails and downloaded a bunch of sample software that supposedly helps people write by minimising distractions. MY main problem is that the distractions are all in my head. I write a few sentences, then think of something relevant, and then I have to go off and link it. I really am a blogger at heart, it seems.

I haven’t been to the post office AGAIN and now it’s too late because I’m waiting for the supermarket to deliver some food and I won’t be back in time if I go now. Also, I haven’t bought a birthday card for Nick yet. His birthday is tomorrow. I am a terrible person.

Bye Diary,

– Debbie.

P.S. I don’t think today is one of those life-changing days.

P.P.S. Unless Nick is so hurt by the lack of birthday card that this triggers a downward spiral to our relationship and he breaks up with me. Oh god, I’d better make a card or something.