Justin Germino Ramblings

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a Nintendo Gamecube game repackaged with Wii Motion controls and sold for the Wii.  I had never actually played the game before and rented it from Gamefly for my kids to play.  It was quite enjoyable for a six year old to play and watch.  It is a side scrolling action game where you play as Donkey Kong and collect banana’s by going through different kingdoms.  Each kingdom pertains to a fruit (banana, orange, apple…etc) and each Kingdom has 2 levels and a boss at the end.  Your hit points vs the bosses depends on how many banana’s you collect and however many you retained is your final score for the level.

The game is fun, entertaining and is a treat for little kids.  It is a bit easy and I made it through the first six kingdoms in only two hours, so the game is probably worth renting rather than buying since it will be beaten quickly.  I wish it had a 2 player option to let a 2nd player run around as Diddy Kong or something, as my six and three year olds took turns, it would have been better if they could play simultaneously.

Highly recommended if you have kids under 8 years old, I would say the game play is from 5 – 7 years old.

-Justin Germino

This isn’t the 1950’s anymore where a rigid father/son system existed where Fathers were just not brought up to show affection and emotions to anyone, especially their sons becuase it wasn’t the “man” way. Too often even in modern times a Father will have no qualms about showing a daughter affection, hugging and telling her “Daddy loves her” but when faced with a son, the Father will often just give a slap on the back, and not show any of the same emotional affection traits that they would with a daughter.

I myself grew up in a house where my mother always let us know how much she loved us, but I don’t think I can recall more than once if ever I heard my father ever say he Loved Me, or was proud of me. My mother always had to tell me on the side “Your father loves you, he just doesn’t say it”. This for years left me with trying to constantly compete for my dads “approval and affection” often leading to a negative self image and myself struggling with feelings of worthlessness in high school and early adult years.

I have since grown past all of this and am determined my two sons will never feel the way I had felt as a child, they are no stranger to me hugging them and telling them how proud I am of them. No stranger to me tucking them in at night and giving them “super tucks” along with a hug and a kiss. They won’t ever have to worry about not meeting my standards, or feeling like they aren’t good enough because they are as perfect as any two kids can be.

So let this be a tip for fathers who think they shouldn’t show son’s affection or be open with emotions around them, it is not only healthy but vital to their well being and mental state that you let your sons know that you love them and that you are proud of them. The last thing you would want is for them to grow up and have the exact same personality where they won’t show their own kids affection and emotion and repeat a cycle that should have been ended decades ago.

-Justin Germino

A coworker and friend of mine was telling me about her attempt to make Takoyaki at home and I had never even heard of the traditional Japanese dish. (Tako is Japanese for Octopus). The dish is fried octopus and you can see the recipe along with pictures of before and after from Soylent Mean’s Takoyaki Adventures.

I would be adventurous enough to try such a dish, I love trying new cuisine and have enjoyed shark fin dumplings, tako salads as well as a variety of sushi and sashimi dishes, but have never had the pleasure of enjoying a dish like this.

-Justin Germino

I have a friend who knows that I sometimes write articles on fitness and weight loss, not that I am an expert but I did manage to lose fifty pounds in two years the healthy way and without looking for the best diet pills on the market.

I always tell people the same thing when it comes to losing weight:

Eat in Moderation:

It sounds so simple, yet these two simple things are so hard to actually do if you struggle with willpower and complacency. First eating in moderation is extremely hard, if you go out to eat as I often do you will see portion sizes are three times what they should be. Yet people complain they aren’t getting their money’s worth if restaurants served smaller portions, so its a vicious cycle of people expecting more food for the money which in turn makes them fatter when they consume the whole plate.

How about this, when ordering at your favorite restaurant, ask the waiter to put half of the food in a “To Go” container before they even bring the food to the table? This option alone may help you consume less when you eat out and you save money by having a 2nd meal with the leftovers.

Avoid all you can eat buffets like the plague, these will tempt you to pile on food and eat until you are gorged. They are common and cheap and all over the place, yet these will certainly keep you from your weight loss goals.

Increase Exercise:

I am not talking about spending an hour a day running, jogging or training for a marathon. You simply need to add 30 minutes of exercise in either 2 15 minute chunks (15 minutes morning, 15 minutes afternoon) or one thirty minute set. The ideal exercise for losing weight is one that builds muscle which in turn helps metabolize fat faster.

Aerobic exercise is needed to build endurance and is healthy for your heart, but your first concern is losing weight and you should focus on weight training type exercises.

You only need a kettlebell, or some free weights. Push-ups, pull-ups, jack knifes, crunches, tricep curls and bicep curl will get you started. You can also do squats while performing a variety of these methods which will work your leg muscles as well.

I found that a good fitness band is multi-purpose and if you are not a heavy exerciser will work very well for toning your muscles and working your muscle groups.

Summary:

It sounds simple but realistically these two things are all it takes to shed some excess weight the steady and healthy way.

-Justin Germino

You may have heard that you can make some money blogging and you would be right. However becoming successful enough to where you can quit your day job and be a full time blogger is akin to an actor going to Hollywood and becoming the next $20 million a film mega star. You have millions of people competing out there and you have to carve out a name and space in the internet for yourself.

You don’t have to look for business plan writers when trying to start a blog, you just need to sit down and have a basic idea, layout and theme in mind. I myself would have saved a few months of initial headaches and trouble had I learned and followed the basic outlines below.

• Monetary Investment

You will know right off the bat that to become successful or start any business, there will be some monetary investment. It costs far less to start a blog than most business, but know that you should spend the investment and get a self hosted blog. Using DreamHost, HostGator, BlueHost or any number of web hosting providers, but choose the best one and get a monthly plan that works with your budget. Many companies are no longer accepting free Typepress, Blogspot or WordPress.com blogs, so to be taken seriously and professionally you need to be self hosted.

Budget about $200 for your first year of blogging, this would include your hosting fees for a year, plus some initial spending capital for advertising, promotion and such. Many hosting providers will give you an AdWords credit to get you started, so leverage some of this. $100 in AdWords credit can get you hundreds of thousands of impressions for free.

• Topic of Interest (aka Niche)

The most successful and high ranking blogs are ones that cover a very niche market, though you only target a specific audience you will be higher rated in Search Engine rankings, earn more from AdSense and have a better job of capitalizing on KeyWords for that niche. Note, you can’t niche in “Technology, Health” you must be very specific about your niche. If you want to run a blog about Giraffe’s that would be a niche market. If you want to blog only about Google Android, that would be another niche market.

I recommend you keep your blog categories (these are general topics) to no more than 5 on your blog, unless you have a broad scope blog like a personal diary or are covering a huge category like Technology which I do with one of my blogs. Once you decide on what you will blog about, you must include the fact of the following: If I write 100 posts about this topic, 1 year from now will I still be interested in blogging about it?

Don’t just do product reviews and don’t just spew information on new gadgets coming out, know that to capitalize on blog paying programs they want to see your own opinions, stories and writing come out in your articles.

Stay Tuned, there will be more to come with Before You Start A Blog – Part 2 which will be published soon. Subscribe to my RSS so you don’t miss the next article in this installment.

-Justin Germino

Maybe it was overindulgence in the birthday cake for my three year old yesterday, or perhaps from the Turkey Pot Pies I had for dinner, but I spent all night feeling sick to my stomach and fighting the nausea.

I managed to survive the night by sleeping on the floor and am working exhaustively today with dark circles under eyes as a result of the lack of sleep.

You would think that I would know better, my body cannot tolerate certain foods and they cause me extreme gastrointestinal agony, yet I am like a hamster who keeps licking the same salt lick and getting shocked over and over again.

Foods I should avoid:

Dairy of any kind
Alcohol
White flour and starchy foods
Sugary foods
Nitrate riddled foods
Mayonnaise
Eggs
Sausage
Tomato Sauces
Pizza
Bananas (possibly, I have found a connection to stomach pains after eating banana’s, but uncertain)

Eating any of the above foods will usually leave me feeling sick or with intense stomach pain for hours after consuming such food.

Eventually my diet will be restricted to merely kibble like our dogs.

-Justin Germino

The National Toy Hall of Fame in New York has inducted the Nintendo Gameboy into the hall of fame for revolutionizing the hand held gaming platform when it debuted in 1989. Additional inductees included the Big Wheel Tricycle launched by Lous Marx & Co in 1969 and the “Ball” in all its forms.

25 assorted balls including the Golf Ball, Basketball, Soccer ball, Football, bowling balls to Nerf balls were included with the induction of the “Ball” which was long overdue.

The National Toy Hall of fame is located in Rochester, NY and has existed for 11 years, inducting select toys each year into its hall of fame.

-Justin Germino

My wife is considering hosting a type of Christmas party this year as a social gathering for friends and people she knows. Sending out Christmas party invitations is the easy part, as she would have to plan and prepare a multi course dinner, setup, cooktime, and we would have to clean up.

Plus we would have to figure whether or not to have the kids go over to Grandma or if the party would be late enough that the kids would already be in bed. Lots of preparation, planning and work go into hosting social gatherings, especially ones around this house.

-Justin Germino

Found this great article on Physorg.com about Laser Etching Grapefruit and how various studies have shown that grapefruits that had labels etched into the rinds via a laser showed no measurable loss of water or increase in decay while undergoing transport. This means Laser Etching produce is likely to become an alternative to sticker labels which saves the trees it takes to make the labels as well as the fact that labels fall off, get ruined by being wet and the annoying hassle of having to remove them.

I  personally think Laser etching makes much more sense as the labels are just temporary until the product is purchased and in the case of fruits and vegetables with outer layers that are removed, you save the paper product by just etching them with a laser.

-Justin Germino

Today my youngest son, my second boy turned three years old. He is so different in personality than his older brother, very strong willed, fearless and extremely social. Both boys are developing into children of good character and I am so proud to be the parent of my two sons. I just can’t believe that within a few months my youngest will be transitioning out of diapers and we had promised the two boys could bunk together in the same room, right now they have separate rooms but have been wanting to sleep in bunk bed together for a while.

Yesterday we had a big birthday party for the boys at Amazing Jakes in Mesa, and today we just rented a giant jumping castle for the whole boys. I am looking forward to just spending the entire day with them playing with new birthday toys and being a part of their birthday.

-Justin Germino