Ranma's manipulative nature

Manipulation is a form of social influence. Everyone does it to varying degrees and it, like any tool, can be used for good (such as persuading an unhealthily obese person to lose weight) or for ill (such as conning people out of their life savings). There are many different types, degrees, reasons, and ways to manipulate people.

I bring this up because I often see, in Ranma ½ fanfiction, Ranma not being very manipulative when the manga incarnation of Ranma is extremely manipulative. He is far more manipulative than any other character in the series (the anime version is less manipulative). As far as I can tell there is not even one volume in which Ranma does not at least try to manipulate someone in someway. In fanfiction, Nabiki tends to be portrayed as the most manipulative character; probably because she is (manga version) avaricious, opportunistic, unscrupulous, fairly hedonistic, and borderline sociopathic (she shows absolutely no remorse for her actions). A lot of the traits usually ascribed to Nabiki in fan fiction (such as spying on people to find out their secrets, being manipulative, setting up elaborate plans, knowing what is going on, etc.) apply a lot more to Ranma than Nabiki.

I do not view all of Ranma's machinations in a positive light. That said I do usually, though not always, see them as being justifiable. In fan fics I often see Ranma resort to violence too quickly and too frequently. That is not his standard modus operandi. Ranma will usually try to be diplomatic (talk things through) and when that fails (usually because the other person really has no inclination to talk things through) he tends to resort to things like manipulation and deception before proceeding to violence. Violence, in most situations, is his last, not first, resort.

In a related note; Ranma's interpersonal skills are often viewed as being a lot worse than they are shown to be in the manga. While there are some situations in which his social skills are inadequate (mostly in situations involving romance or the possibility of romance) they are for the most part very good. He can explain things (most people do not listen or hear only what they want to hear which is not his fault -example Ranma tried to explain to Akane about the pressure points on Miss Hinako with the use of a visual aid we are shown that Akane selectively edited the conversation), he tries to be diplomatic (for example with Ryoga, Ukyo, Akane, etc.) that the other people have no inclination to talk it out is not his fault (this is something he has actively complained about for example in one volume, volume 11 by Japanese/online scan count, he tells Akane "when have you ever let me explain things before hitting me" after she said why didn't you explain it). He has no trouble socializing with people at school (hangs out with two kids). One of his faults though is he doesn't know how to socialize with girls as well as guys (probably because he spent most of his life around guys not girls, he was shown to have gone to an all boys school). For the most part he talks to girls as if they were guys for example guys would slap each other on the shoulder which is what Ranma did to Akane at least once. A couple other things which may contribute to people viewing him as having poor social skills is that he is out of touch with popular culture which is a hindrance amongst teens (he is a martial arts nerd) and he sometimes speaks without thinking about the ramifications of his words (he gets in more trouble from telling his honest opinion than he does when he lies). The fact that he is capable of manipulating people implies he has better social skills than many people assume.

Before I get further side tracked, here is a list of some, not anywhere near all, of Ranma's machinations:

1. Being a matchmaker.
- tried to set up Cologne and Happosai, did setup Ryoga and Akari, was going to teach mirror clone how to properly pick up guys, etc.

2. Fake or create an injury to garner sympathy
- multiple times, for example the time he purposely hit himself with nunchucks to garner Akanes sympathy

3. Donning a disguise and pretending to be someone else
- all the time, pretended to be Ryoga's sister, maid, fiancee, etc.

4. Blackmail
- Few actual attempts for example tried to blackmail Nabiki with what he thought was a love letter. Has searched multiple peoples rooms looking for things to use against them (for example he searched Nabiki's room multiple times). Very much implied that he would blackmail people were he to find things to blackmail them with and had a reason to do so.

5. Emotional blackmail
- Fairly frequently for example with Picolet Chardin III told him, paraphrasing, if you love me you'd tell me the secret of the technique.

6. Threats/intimidation/coercion
- Few times for example threatened the Cherry Tree spirit with an axe.

7. Enjo kōsai
- Going on dates to get stuff such as his date with Tatewaki or Shampoo.

8. Bribes
- Rarely uses this since the majority of characters do not want anything he is willing to give. Example: To get Tatewaki's love (to win the competition) she gave him many objects such as a handmade scarf, love letter, bottled water, etc. or Happosai to get him to lower his guard.

9. Teasing/Seduction
- Teases people commonly. Was attempting to seduce Akane to get rid of the Dogi.

10. Drugs
- Tried to slip Tatewaki and Densuke drugs in their food, used chloroform on Happosai, got Happosai drunk, etc.

11. Elaborate plans, some involving many people and multiple steps
- In an attempt to get Happosai to change Taro's name he came up with an elaborate plan that involved writing a play, using suggestion incense, drugging Happosai, getting multiple people to work together, etc.

12. Guilt trip
- Made people feel guilty to get them to do stuff. For example, Akane when he pretended that he destroyed the instant man spring water.

13. Ventriloquism
- To mess with Ryoga, Akane, and once he went a step further than just the voice and used an unconscious Tatewaki like a literal puppet to force him to apologize to Kodachi.

14. Pretending to be beaten or apologizing then attack when guard has been lowered
- Pretended that Ryoga beat up an innocent normal high school girl to get him to lower his guard, pretended to bow and beg to Shampoo before attacking her, etc.

15. Scare tactics
- Used rubber snakes and other supposedly scary items on the school girls.

Okay I feel I have listed enough to make my point, Ranma is extremely manipulative. That is no where near a complete list and the labels/order for them is somewhat arbitrary. The thing is they are not one time things or isolated incidents this is common behavior for him. He is always manipulating people and playing head games. It is even a major part of his fighting style; he uses distraction (like look over there), underhanded tactics, fake incapacity, duplicity, trash talk, insults, etc. all the time. He exploits character flaws and weaknesses (to list them all would take a really long time) but basically if a person has a weakness (such as an addiction to women undergarments, anger at seeing breasts, an exploitable curse, etc.) he will use it against them (provided he has a reason to). He is shown to actively seek these types of things out (like searching Nabikis room). Because of how manipulative he is (and how much the characters around him are jerks) he is constantly suspicious of other peoples behavior and motives for example Happosai's friend Lucky and Nabiki (the open and trusting Ranma seen in some fan fiction is nothing like how he is in the manga).

Since this is a post on how manipulative Ranma is I will now say that not only is Ranma manipulative he is actually pretty good at messing with people. Ranma's machinations usually work on their intended target (he reaches his intended objective, though he is somewhat shortsighted on occasion and neglects to plan for what happens after he reached his objective). When they do fail or backfire (usually after he reached his intended objective) it is generally for one of these reasons:

1. His morals (or sense of honor) kick in. This results in him realizing how much of a jerk he is being, starts feeling sorry for his victim(s), and begins to feel guilty for his actions.
- This is actually why people like Nabiki are able to get one over him and what prevents him from being a monster. If this didn't happen things like Happosais death would have happened (when Happosai was weakened by Ranma, Ranma felt sorry for him and did not finish Happosai off or let the fathers do so). Basically he is too sensitive to other peoples feeling, if a girl, Ryoga, or even Happosai start crying or something he will feel sorry for them and try to help them (no matter how much trouble they had caused Ranma earlier).

2. Third party interference.
Things like Akane revealing that it is really him in disguise or Soun and Genma interrupting.

3. Opponents or allies taking unexpected and unforeseeable actions.
- This is a major problem for any plan. You can make plans based on the most logical thing a person would do or based on past actions but people do not always do the most logical things and can screw up your plan no matter how well made it is. For example Happosai deciding to kill baby Taro instead of taking the much easier and more logical route and giving him another name or his allies (Mousse, Ryoga, etc.) deciding to back-stab him.

This was actually one of the very first posts I had intended to write but I kept putting it off. While I do feel that this post serves its intended purpose of pointing out that Ranma is very manipulative it still doesn't really feel complete to me. I sort of feel like listing the justifications and context for Ranma's actions (as I had stated the majority of his manipulations are, imo, justifiable based on need or the actions of others and context is important because Ranma comes off as being a much worse person when the context for his actions are left out). I was thinking about explaining how being primarily opportunistic (Nabiki) is different from being manipulative (Ranma), though there is overlap (major difference being that one waits for a situation to come about and takes advantage of it, the other will do that but also will create a situation to take advantage of if one doesn't already exist).

Some thing else I felt like putting in the post but wasn't sure where to put it (that is why it is here at the bottom) is the fact that Ranma, and the majority of the cast, are teenagers. From a biological stand point. The prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing until around the age of 25. Teenagers rely mostly on the amygdala which is the primary seat of emotion in the brain which leads teenagers to over-focus on the emotions of the immediate situation. The prefrontal cortex which is still developing in teenagers deals with initiation, planning, sustaining attention, organizing action, inhibiting reactions, shifting from one task to another, and regulating emotion. What that basically means is that I would expect fanfiction that has an older Ranma in them to have him be even better at manipulating and tricking people. At the time of the manga Ranma is impatient and somewhat shortsighted. That is something I would expect him to grow out of. While his plans generally work up to the point he thought them up he often failed to plan for what happens after he reached his immediate objective (or that it might be better to wait a little while before implementing his plan or think them through longer). While he is extremely good at improvising (for example in the battle with Herb he improvised a change of the Hiryu Shoten Ha based on it principals and correctly anticipated Herbs actions) it would still have been advantageous for him to have contingency plans already set in place.

Ash Wednesday

For Lent this year I have decided to give up meat for the third consecutive year in a row. The decision to give up meat yet again is influenced largely by the fact that my brother and one of my sisters have become vegetarians and my other sister is a vegan. That and I don't really have all that many other things to give up. I don't gamble, smoke, drink, take drugs, or do much of anything that people generally give up. I could give up something easier than meat such as snacks or fast food but seeing as to how I do not eat snacks very often (of the junk food variety) or eat fast food often (usually eat at home and when I do eat out it generally is not fast food) that is not really a sacrifice (there are also many other reasons as to why it is good to give up meat and in general I don't eat a lot of meat - no where near the average amount for people in my country).

Even if you are not a Christian or a religious person it is good to occasionally at least attempt to give up a vice or get rid of a bad habit (a lot of people make New Years resolutions which is similar), even if it is only for a short time (to prove to yourself, if no one else, that you can -though it is better to not start up a bad habit or vice once you have given it up). It need not be a vice or something you consider a bad habit though; giving up something that consumes a lot of your time for a little while can be beneficial as well. If you spend four hours a day watching television or surfing the internet giving that up for awhile may open up new interests or increase communication with friends and family as you try to fill the time.

Besides giving something up for Lent it is customary to pray more often. I do not consider myself to be a very religious person and do not spend very much time praying at all. You don't really have to believe in God to benefit from prayer. Prayer is in many ways similar to meditation and has many of the same tangible advantages (reduces stress, opens blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, etc.). So if you are religious try praying more during Lent (and try combining it with breathing exercises of meditation), if you are not religious try meditating occasionally. Oh and by prayer I do not mean asking God for things like to win the lottery; God is not a genie.

Mardi Gras and Animal Crossing City Folk

Mardi Gras is not a big event for me. The only thing I do to celebrate this day is eat a few Paczki. I have told myself that I want to go to a Mardi Gras event some time, just to experience it, but whenever Fat Tuesday comes around I never do. There are several events in the local area, none of which are free, there is even a jazz club, a pizza place, and a restaurant named Mardi Gras. Part of the reason I don't, besides cost, is because the events all are things I do not do. I don't drink alcohol, dance, listen to jazz music, and am not really very fond of Cajun food. While there are at least two places that has Mardi Gras events (New Orleans food, Jazz music, etc.) on a nearly weekly basis I haven't gone to them either.

What I did do was play Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Nintendo Wii. I got a Wii for Christmas the year before last and Animal Crossing last Christmas. I don't play the Wii very often, partly because my favorite game type is role playing (not a huge selection of RPG's on this system) and partly because I haven't been playing video games all that often in general lately. For those who may read this and not know, Animal Crossing is a life simulator set in a small town populated by weird talking animals with very strange wildlife and fossils (the fish, bugs, fossils of dinosaurs; live in completely different parts of the world in real life). I have not been playing the game regularly, instead I've been playing about once a week for an hour or two at a time. The game celebrates various holidays, including Carnival (yet another name for Fat Tuesday). To celebrate a peacock named Pavé shows up and wants various colored candy. To obtain the candy the townsfolk play various games like Rock Paper Scissors with candy as the prize if you win. The game would probably be more fun if I played in the day time but I tend to play it during the middle of the night (around 2:00 A.M.) after all the shops have closed. I've caught a lot of fish though.

I've played the Gamecube version and this version and am unsure which version I like more. It is basically the same game with a few differences. I would have liked them to have added even more stuff. I found it easier to obtain objects in the Gamecube version and the characters in the Gamecube version would ask you to do stuff more frequently (this version they keep asking for stuff I don't have and can't get like a green desk or something, in the other version they tended to make me run from character to character more frequently). This version does have the city, less sea bass, and somewhat better graphics though which is a plus. The thing that I liked the most about the Gamecube version as opposed the the Wii version was that you could play some old NES games in the game (they even gave you one when you first started playing), they appear to have gotten rid of this since you can now buy the games via the Wii's wifi connection (not really helpful since I don't see a point in paying for those games since I can get the originals cheaper used at some stores and am on dial up internet).

I don't generally read fan fiction based on video games but I did read a very good Animal Crossing fan fic called Lets Play: The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing. The fan fic is a different interpretation than what most people would think of playing the game. It is not a happy story at all, it is in fact very dark. I occasionally like reading dark, depressing, overly serious stories. I also have a tendency to notice the darkness in stories meant to be lighthearted or frivolous. In the actual game I've noticed somethings I consider dark. One thing is a gyroid runs the auction house; I've been contemplating, though haven't actually done, putting up gyroids for auction so that guy would be a slaver. Another thing is that the Happy Room Academy guy can enter the house anytime he wants and even says he has thousands of keys.

Year of the Tiger and Valentines Day

This year Valentines day and Chinese New Year happened to fall on the same day. Of the two holidays, Chinese New Year is the one I care about more. Valentines day is mostly a day for couples if you are single it doesn't have nearly as much importance (except for depressing a lot of people that are single).

I generally do something like go to a Chinese restaurant or event on Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the tiger, I contemplated getting some tiger lilies to celebrate it but didn't see any (the stores only had valentines type flowers like roses and tulips). While I mostly write about Japanese culture on this blog I have interest in other cultures such as Chinese as well. This year I went to the local Asian area and watched some performances.

The first performance, and the one that draws the largest crowd, was the lion dance. The lion dance is exactly what it sounds like: performers mimicking a lion's movements while in a lion costume. The lion did a dance, pretended to take a nap, licked itself clean, and then stopped at various stores (the place I went to was a Chinese mini-mall) to "chai ching" (picking the greens). The business had put up "Ang Pow" (red envelope) filled with money to a head of lettuce and oranges and hang it high above the front of their doors. The lion, followed by a much smaller lion with children inside it approached the oranges first, tasted them, then spit them out into the crowd. After it tried the oranges and found them distasteful it walked around near the crowd and ate red envelopes that the people in the crowd put in (the troop had a table set up before hand with empty envelopes for this purpose) and would occasionally spit up hard candies into the crowd which children would run around to get. After the lion finished its round of the crowd it noticed the that their was lettuce hanging from the ceiling. The lion then jumped onto some chairs so as to reach the lettuce, examined it curiously, made like it was going to eat the lettuce, changed its mind, then grabbed it quickly. Like the oranges it did not like the taste of lettuce and spit out the lettuce leaves but not the money. The lion dance is supposed to bring good luck and fortune to the people and businesses and the dancers receive the money as reward. I've seen this group of people do the lion dance many times now and it is always enjoyable (just a couple pieces of trivia: Japan does lion dances as well called Shishimai and some kung fu places practice doing lion dances).

After the lion dance, a different group (all children who are learning to dance) did various traditional Chinese dances. They were not as good as the group doing the lion dance (the lion dance group was professionals who get a lot more practice) but were still pretty good (though it was obvious that the place they generally practiced at was larger than the area they had to perform in). I would have liked to get the names of the dances but there was too much noise and I was unable to hear them. One of them was a fan dance, another was one in which they appeared to be picking rice, another was an umbrella dance, another one had the children dressed in military uniform with a lot of saluting, and one dance was clearly based on the tale of the Monkey King (there were a couple other dances as well).

Following the children dancing was a Taiko performance. Taiko means big drum in Japanese. The group performed several drumming pieces (if I remember correctly two of the pieces they played were called fireworks and thunder storm). Japanese drumming is pretty cool, you can feel the vibrations through your feet. The group performing it was Icho Daiko. They also offer classes on how to play the drums and a workshop in which you make your own drum. If I had the money for it I would do that because it is really cool. To match the rhythm in one of the pieces they were singing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 in Japanese which does sound like a song.

Next was a group playing traditional Chinese musical instruments. They were pretty good and they had a child prodigy of 6 years old playing a Zither of some type (possibly a Guqin). I did not stay for this very long though because I had some other stuff to do. There were a few more performances such as a kung fu demonstration and another lion dance but I did not stay for them. I then looked at some of the booths set up, got a couple Chinese American newspapers (really not that interesting except a couple articles about orphans in India), my name written in Chinese calligraphy, and then went to an Asian bakery I frequent fairly often. I plan on going to another free performance in the area in May (they will have a dragon dance which I've never actually seen live) and a performance held at the main branch library (I've gone to this a few times before and it is pretty entertaining last time they had some Chinese Yo-yo performances as well as dances and food).

Becoming Batman

Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero by E. Paul Zehr is not a guide to becoming Batman. It would be a more interesting and significantly longer book if it was. The book concentrates on the physical aspects, namely could someone physically fight crime as Batman is depicted to in the comic books.

Were it a guide to becoming Batman it would likely suggest subjects to study such as forensics, criminal psychology, chemistry, and other sciences one would expect the worlds greatest detective to know. It would explain how to hide the expenses for the gadgets (planes, cars, helicopters, etc.) from the government and possibly depending on continuity the embezzlement (Batman had paid for the Justice Leagues watchtower by hiding it in his companies space budget in one of the animated series). How to avoid being arrested for taking the law in your own hands/assault and explain away the purchases of things like bullets used in the vehicles. It might cover how to explain away injuries acquired fighting, after-all, people would start to wonder how all the injuries came to be (this is done with varying degrees of believability in the comic explanations like falling down the steps while drunk, totaling one of Bruce Wayne's cars to explain the damage done by Bane, and in a spoof saying he was into BDSM). It would explain how to build a state of the art cave underneath your house in secret (the best explanation I have seen was in a Batman novel, not graphic novel, in which he had people, multiple groups each doing a different part, shipped in from a foreign country under the cover of darkness blind folded and in a 18 wheeler then returned them to their home country done this way so they did not know where in the world they were or exactly what they were doing). Though there is other things I have not mentioned.

That said, it is not a bad book and is fairly informative. Though some would probably say needlessly so and it uses rhetorical questions far to often in my opinion. It reads like it is meant to be a text book that uses the Batman angle to make it more interesting for the students (considering the publisher, John Hopkins University Press, that may very well be the reason for the books existence).

The book is divided into five parts. Part one titled Bat-Building Blocks talks about body composition (things like lean body mass, fat, genetics, etc.). This part of the book in particular is very science heavy, explaining things like how cells are made, genetics, nature vs nurture, hormones, etc. ultimately this part of the book states that many factors that are a key to physical performance (such as oxygen uptake) have a genetic performance (usually around 20-30% but in some cases up to 50%). What that means is that your maximum physical potential is in part predetermined by your genetics.

The second part of the book is called Basic Batbody Training. This part of the book is on physical training and goes into quite some detail on how muscles work, limits of toughening the body, and how many calories and what foods Batman would likely need to eat. What I found most interesting in this section of the book is the discussion on the difference between strength and power. It states that strength is the ability to lift large forces regardless of the speed of contraction whereas power is effort at high speed. Makes mention that it is possible to be very strong but not powerful though a certain amount of strength is needed to be powerful. The part on bones is alright most interesting part of that is that while you toughen some bones correspondingly other bones weaken. States that Batman would take vitamins, supplements, have an athletes diet (higher carbohydrates than a non athlete around 60% carbohydrates, 25% protein, and 15% fat), and because of energy expenditure would have a high calorie diet (estimates 3,500-4,000 calories a day). One part of this section I do not agree with. It mentions the importance of calcium and says we should all drink our milk. I like milk, drink quite a bit, but milk is really not as good a source of calcium as it is touted to be. For example: One 12 year study, by the American Journal of Public Health, found that women who drank more than a glass of milk a day (the USDA recommends three per day) had a 45 percent greater chance of a hip fracture. Women who got the same amount of calcium from non-dairy sources had no increase. This is not the only study that points to milk not as good a source of calcium as it is generally thought of there are others as well. The reason speculated for that is that they are getting too much protein (which milk has). The human body uses calcium while processing protein, the amount of calcium in milk is not high enough to counter the amount of protein the average person eats which leads to the body leeching calcium from the bones.

The third part of of the book is named Training the Batbrain. It starts by explaining how the brain and nervous system work (somewhat) and how training optimizes reflex pathways and motor learning. It then talks of over-training and how you have to practice often to maintain the skills. The next chapter (Each part is divided into multiple chapters) deals with the type of martial arts training Batman would likely learn to fight crime. It starts out mentioning, often seen on forums, that Batman has studied 127 martial art styles. The authors sees this as hyperbola. That it is impossible to master that many styles, is pointless since you wouldn't gain deep understanding or competency, and that he does not think there are that many truly different styles (though there are subdivisions of martial arts that would put the number into the hundreds). I sort of agree with him on that. The thing is I think it could be done, not grandmastery or even mastery in each style, but it is possible to study the styles to find out how they differ from one another learning the strengths and weakness's of each. Mastery is not needed but knowing the styles could help you prepare to combat those styles (much easier to do when you have an idea as to what your opponent is likely to do). The book mentions that most modern day styles are really not good at combat; having been made less martial (Judo for example had open hand strikes and kicks before it was commercialized). Suggests that Batman is most likely to learn Ninjitsu, not the fake version, the actual version that was in Japan during the 18th century that involved espionage and assassination. He would need a style that involved multiple styles of combat including punching, kicking, throwing, grappling, joint locks, and weapons. Most fighting styles specialize in one type such as Judo having throwing and grappling but no striking. The last chapter in this section deals with the question can a person go around fighting without killing his opponent. Books answer is much easier to kill but could be done provided he was skilled enough.

The fourth part of the book, Batman in Action, deals with the damage Batman can do and still continue doing what he does, hardening the body (which was discussed in part earlier in the book), and night shift work. The first chapter in this part talks about the weak spots in the human body, power of a punch/kick, and taking a fall. Talks about body hardening techniques such as hitting an object repeatedly. Then goes into some detail about changing bone density, hardening the skin, and changing the perception of pain. Mentions that Batman is unlikely to do extreme body conditioning because of his suit and some of the side effects (like a loss of manual dexterity). Since I find this very interesting I will mention the part about Mas Oyama, the founder of the karate style Kyokushinkai, who did extreme body conditioning and would have found the breaking point technique seen in the Ranma manga as training he would have done. He repeatedly punched hard objects until the skin broke and tendons were exposed, doing this repeatedly led to callus forms anchored to the tendons (he also did this to other parts of his body by kicking or throwing himself at hard objects). Mas Oyama wrote a couple books that I might look at called What is Karate and This is Karate simply because I find his body conditioning interesting, though I would not do it). The last part talks about the circadian rhythms and how Batman could not only sleep for an hour a day as he is sometimes portrayed to do in the comics. Though the book does not mention the drug Modafinil an anti-sleep drug that allows you to stay up safely for almost two days while remaining practically as focused, alert, and capable of dealing with complex problems as the well-rested; or really any other drugs besides steroids that Batman could theoretically use.

The last section of the book is called a mixed bag and is about whatever else the author felt like talking about. He mentions injury and recovery, gender differences between males and females, and how long could Batman do what he does. Talks about broken bones healing, torn cartilage, having to retrain to get back into shape, and other things. Asks if Batman would use steroids (not likely). Mentions that Batman could not keep up his life style for very long probably only a few years a decade at most.

Interview with the author by Scientific America: Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long

Somewhat related forbes article about the estimated costs Batman inures: Being Batman

Eat this not that

While at the library I saw the book Eat This, Not That! Restaurant Survival Guide and decided to check it out since I have seen it mentioned on several websites. I generally do not read diet/nutrition/health guide books, since I view many of them as scams and I do not go on fad diets. I have in the past decided to lose weight and then did so, but I did not consult books, go on a fad diet, or join a gym. I increased the amount of exercise I did via a self-made exercise plan and cut my calorie intake (though I did not count my daily calorie intake, I simply made choices that I knew were, or suspected, were less calorie intense - which is actually the point of this book - and avoided some foods such as cookies and dressings/condiments).

The book will have very little influence on what I eat because I do not go to restaurants very frequently (no where near 4 times a week as the book indicates the average American does) and the ones I do go to are, for the most part, not listed in the book (in fact I have been to very few of the restaurants listed in the book and I have no idea where the majority of them are located were I inclined to go to them). The exception to this is the month of December in which I go to restaurants much more frequently though still not four times a week. The reason for that is several people in my family have birthdays in December, including me, and like to go out to eat for their birthday and Christmas. Part of the reason is that I can get free food (for example free burrito from Moe's southwest grill, free ice-cream cone from Baskin Robbins) and discounts at other places (buy one get one free from places like Hometown Buffet). Even if I were to go to restaurants more frequently I find it very unlikely that I will remember the books suggestions when I do go or if I do would want what it suggests (for example: I dislike chicken).

One of the most interesting things, in my opinion of course, is the chart in the introduction of the book which lists the changes in calorie count for various foods in the last twenty years. The chart says that there has been, on average, a 190% increase of calories in french fries, a 75% increase in cheeseburgers, and a 630% increase in a cup of coffee amongst other food items. I knew many foods are less healthy now than they used to be (high fructose corn syrup is in everything, even things like meat and bread and the amount of salt has increased and been put in things that do not need it) but did not think the calorie amount would have increased so drastically.

On the list of the top 20 worst foods in America, I have not eaten even one of them. Prior to reading this book I did not even know that the cheesecake factory served foods other then cheesecake and similar goods. As for the list with the top 20 best foods, I have eaten five of the listed foods though two of those food items I have only eaten once as far as I can recall. The book has a list of seven habits of highly obese people, many of which I have. I tend to use large plates, eat too quickly, chew less then they recommend, and eat everything on the plate (I always view it as wasteful to not eat everything on the plate and if people are going to I feel they should doggy bag it). I do not do the other ones though, I will use chopsticks if they are around, I prefer to view scenery rather than look at the food, and I don't skip breakfast.

The book really does not like the foods I tend to eat the most often calling them empty calories (those foods being pasta, rice, and breads). It also really does not like milkshakes (to the point it calls them abominations and says that they should not even be drunk occasionally) and most ice cream which are often the primary, most often only, reason I go to fast food restaurants. I will go to Steak and Shake and get only a milk shake or go to Wendy's and get a frosty and nothing else.

If you are counting your calories you would probably be better off visiting the books website or another similar website such as Calorie lab. Though you have to keep in mind that the listed calorie or fat count may not be the actual amount in the foods. The reason I say this is because companies lie about calorie count on occasion (Study: Restaurants Lie About Calorie Count), they try and trick you by having the serving size be something like half of what they actually give you (or is a smaller amount than you would eat for example I have never eaten just two slices of pizza), and the local restaurant may have changed things from the standard (put more condiments on or done things like add sugar to the foods, like pizza dough, for the kids meals because most kids really like sweets).

The book has quite a bit of interesting trivia that I did not know prior to reading the book for example:

1. Subway is the largest chain eatery in the world even larger than McDonald's.
2. Many basic things are loaded with many more ingredients than you would expect (knew that but not the amounts) for example Wendy's Chicken Nuggets has 30 ingredients, their frosty has 14, Burger Kings chicken fries has 35 ingredients, etc.
3. The colors red, yellow, and orange stimulate hunger (which is why fast food places tend to use those colors) whereas purple, blue, and green tend to subdue it. This deserves special mention because red, yellow, and orange are the primarily used colors throughout the book so if that is to be believed reading this diet book would actually make you hungry.
4. Burger King sells 6.6 million burgers a day.
5. Kentucky Fried Chicken's food is the most popular request by death row inmates (personally I don't see why since I really dislike chicken).

Did not reach writing goal

In the month of November I set a goal for myself to write at least a 50,000 word story (chosen subject was a Ranma fanfic). While I did make an attempt to reach that goal; I did not. I would have liked to have done so but I didn't. This doesn't overly bother me. I'm not exactly happy with what I wrote but at least I wrote something, which is better than nothing. With some editing and expanding upon what I did write, I may consider it as not bad.

There are several reasons as to why I did not reach my goal. The largest contributor was illness. I was sick and had trouble concentrating on things for nine of the thirty days. Some other factors were distraction (I'd sit in front of the computer and instead of typing I'd browse the internet), indecisiveness (in that I could not decide what story I wanted to tell and kept changing the story), writers block, and what contributes to me avoiding doing things more than any other thing: my innate laziness. I'm pretty lazy, for example with this blog I've told myself in the past that I should write at least one post a week so as to acquire regular readers but I keep putting it off even though it is a reasonable goal. This is very obvious when I take into account that I have started, but not completed, more than a hundred posts (I've got a 107 posts, on many subjects, in draft at the time of writing this).

In case anyone happens to be wondering the story I ended up starting, it is a continuation of the Ranma manga that becomes a crossover with X-men Evolution. It's not quite the same as I speculated earlier in a post about an idea for a Ranma X-men Evolution crossover story but does contain some aspects from that post. I still have not decided as to whether I want to post it online somewhere or not but if I do it is unlikely that I'd post any of it until some time next year. This is in part because I want to re-watch at least part of the series so as to get better characterization (I have not watched any of the X-men Evolution series in awhile). That which I did write focuses solely on the Ranma characters with a partial meeting between the Ranma characters and some of the X-men and the Brotherhood.