Xtreme Progress

So I am about a week and a half away from finishing my Activate and Stoked cycle, and so far I am incredibly happy with the results.  I have actually seen a good amount of search results for “Activate Xtreme” and “Stoked” linking to my site, so I figured I’d talk a bit more about my routine, results, and recommendations.

Routine

My lifting routine is always changing.  Eventually plateaus are hit, and the body needs a nice little shock to get itself back into a mass building state.  Since I have been on the stack, my routine has been the following:

Click to View

All workouts start with stretching and end with some stretching.  You will note that legs dont really have a cooldown, mainly because I walk from the gym to my apartment, so I kinda cheat and use that as my cooldown haha.  I work on a 4 day a week cycle, and usually throw in rest days every other day.

Supplementation

My supplementation is as follows:  2 Stoked pills in the AM, 1 Activate pill in the AM, 1 multivitamin, 2 Activate Pills before the workout, Drink about 32 oz of water mixed with Xtend (amino acids) during workout, Drink about 16oz of protein shake (48g protein) after the workout, 1 multivitamin in the PM w/ dinner, then 1 activate pill in the PM, and 2 Stoked pills before bed.

Results

I dont really care for numbers, I go by body composition and just how I feel overall and how much weight I am putting up.  I can say that my numbers have increased all over the board (except chin ups, grr, hate that).  My body composition has increased and I can tell it isn’t a placebo as friends that I see on a once a week or two week basis have noticed changes in my body.  The stack isn’t a miracle stack, and it wont make you huge, but if you work hard, and focus I can guaruntee that it will help you out.  I have responded very well to this stack, which is shocking because I dont react well to most supplements (creatine is hard for me to react with, along with NO2 suppliments).  I think after the stack I may take a few weeks off of it, then get back on again, I am enjoying it and definatly recommend it to those who dedicate themselves at the gym.

Pornography: Painting Pictures of Society

Ok so it’s time to go off on a tangant here, and talk about something random.  Lets admit it, we have all watched porn at some point in our lives, and as a male, I can admint to random porn watching occasions.  I can’t think of one time that I have come across a porn clip that didn’t make me laugh.  But lets think seriously now, porn does teach us a lot about life and relationships!

1. Asian Men Do Not Exist

2. When a man climaxes, It is usually followed with loud grunting and yelling

3. Women always wear shoes in bed / during sex

4. Missionary Sex doesn’t exist

5. Contrary to popular believe, teachers and school girls get the most sex

6. Women will not get angry if a man “finishes” on her body/face

7. Lawyers, Engineers, and Musicians never get sex, only construction workers, repairmen, and doctors do

8. No matter how many men are in a room together naked, as long as one female is in the room, no matter how unattractive, it is not gay

9. Foreigners can be tricked into sex, anytime, any place, anywhere

10. Your maid is probably a slut

11. Public sexual activities are not arrestable offenses

12. No matter how severely injured you are, if you are male then you have a 98% chance of recieving oral sex from the nurse

13. Women would prefer not to hear “i love you”  during sex, but instead profane demeaning words make them enjoy the encounter far more

14. If you are having sex, someone is probably watching

15. If you are caught having sex with your gf’s friend, she will punish you by forcing you to have a threesome

16. Condoms are not necessary, and pre-mature ejaculation is just a myth

17. Women are actually never too tired to have sex, someone made that story up

18. Beds are the worst place to have sex in

19. Every woman owns a sex toy

20. If your friend owns a webcam, shes naked and on the internet

21. Every woman has a clean butt

22. Quiet sex is out of style, women can’t help but be loud

23. Physical harm through sex is encouraged

Opera: Attempting to Extinguish the Fire(fox)

I have always been a Firefox guy.  When I first started getting into the PC world and once the internet started to become commonplace in homes across the world, the battle for browsers started to heat up.  Taking the dive into the broadband waters, I started to toy around with browsers, email clients, search engines, etc.  Just as Google started becoming the new Yahoo!, Mozilla started to become the new Internet Explorer in terms of popularity.  Stronger security, tabbed browsing, and a small footprint made for an easy transition.  However, many of us forget where all of firefox’s key features originated from.

To Pay or Not To Pay

During its early reign, Opera was “pay to play” software.  Called Trialware, Opera gave users a period of time to play around with, then required a purchase to be able to use it.  Luckily, in 2000, this requirement ended, and advancements and popularity started pouring in.

Opera (Wikipedia Link)

Developers nicknamed Opera the “Fastest Browser on Earth,” and although this may have been true at some point in time, newer studies show that although it is indeed faster than Internet Explorer, Firefox still clocks in at a bit better speed…but honestly, the normal web surfer will not notice the difference, at least I havn’t.

Like a Security Blanket, It keeps You Safe

To be honest, any average Joe surfer will not be able to see, hear, or touch the secuirty differences between all of the browsers, so there is no sense in talking about all of the security mumbo-jumbo.  Bottom line here is that Opera does a wonderful job of protecting you from today’s web hazards.  It will warn you if you have connected to an unsecure site that is known for any malware and phishing practices.  Also, when using a secure connection, Opera uses the latest in security technology called SSL 3.0 or another excellent security protocol called TLS.  Opera has admitted to some security vulnerabilities, and like all web browsers like IE, Firefox, and Safari, the developers are working to fix these issues.

Features For The Masses

Ah yes, my favorite part, the features!  Images make the world go round, so here we go:

Main Screen

Appearance Options

Tabbed Browsing

The Wand

Speed Dial

Extra Options

Conclusion

Thats right, I took the plunge, I figured “why not”.  I have always heard of great things about Opera, but I am a huge GUI fanboy, and was never a fan of the simplistic GUI of opera.

Stack Status

Well I have been taking the Activate Xtreme and Stoked stack for about two weeks so far, and in my opinion it is working incredibly well.  I have noticed that all of my muscles are harder througout the day, and fatigue less easily.  The only side effects I have noticed so far is that the first week into the stack I had moments of lightheadedness throught the days, but that eventually cleared up, and also I am developing a bit of minor acne around my lower back, which I am assuming is the result of the increase in testosterone.  My regimine is easy to follow, 2 Stoked Pills + 1 Activate pill in the AM, then two more AE pills in the afternoon, if it is a workout day I take them both at the same time before my workout, if it’s my off day, i will take the pills at separate times throughout the day.  Then i take 1 more AE pill close to bed, along with 2 more Stoked pills right before going to bed.

I will post some lifting stats later this week.

Must Have Maintainance

I got a lot of great feedback from the post about my top 5 favorite programs, and I have even noticed a bunch of hits coming from google.  I figured I would continue the series with my top 5 favorite maintainance programs.

1. Antivirus – Avast and AVG (Tie)

Its very hard to pick between these two programs.  I have used a whole mess of antivirus programs including Nortons, McAfee, Panda, as well as these two.  On my PC I am using Avast! mainly because when I first started beta testing Vista, Avast! was the only antivirus available that supported the 64bit operating system.  AVG was my choice when I used Windows XP and still is my choice on my laptop which is running XP Home edition.  I was quickly turned on to these programs when, after having Nortons for years, installing these and finding tha norton’s missed viruses.  Also both use very low resources, and have no bloatware.  Daily updates are also an awesome feature.

AVG Antivirus

 

2. CCleaner (aka “Crap Cleaner”)

Lets face it, the more your browse the internet, themore you use the computer, the more garbage is collected.  The guys over at Piriform developed a wonderful, small program that at the click of the button will rid your PC of unwanted temporary files, clean out any downloaded files and cookies, and clear out all search forms.  I can guaruntee that the first time you run this program you will free up more than 100MB of space and will see better performance out of your PC.  This program is a staple on any PC that I run or maintain.

Piriform CCleaner

 

3. Spybot Search & Destroy

I am sure by now everyone has used, heard of, or even seen read about Spybot.  Being one of the best free spyware cleaners around, it is a must to have this on your system, especially if you are accessing the internet on a daily basis.  Spybot performs an extensive scan of your PC lettng you know of any and all cases of spyware and allowing you to remove them at the click of a button. Immunization adds protection to your internet browsers to prevent any future spyware attacks to enter your PC. 

Spybot

 

4. O&O Defrag

I have been in the market for a really nice set of defragmentation software, and finally found the winner here with O&O Defrag.  This program provides various different defragmentation options, auto defrag, and scheduled defragmetation.  O&O also provides various different types of defragmentation that can benefit your Hard Disks, your HDD Indexes (also known as MFT), as well as analyze your disks to let you know exactly what is causing heavy fragmentation.  Albiet defrags take a few hours even on my Raid0 Raptor drives, it is very extensive, and very powerful.  Although this program is not free, if you have some spare change, I suggest you pick this up for optimum system health

O&O Disk Defrag

 

5.  Wise Registry Cleaner

Although CCleaner provides a registry cleaner, I personally never found it to be powerful enough for the most demanding computers.  Wise Registry Cleaner is a program I came across within the last year.  Its a free, fast, and powerful registry cleaner.  Wise allows you to scan your computers registry for errors, make a backup, and warns you which entries are safe to fix, and which are not.  At the click of a button you can fix all entries that are safe to fix leaving behind questionable entries until further updates.  For a free program, this program is again, another staple on PC’s that I own.

Wise Registry Cleaner

Out With The Old, In With The New

Well, I finally got the tail lights today, and managed to install them in a few hours.  The reason it took so long was because I had to do a custom job on the wiring harness since the ‘02 harness isn’t the same as the ‘04 harness.  All in all the project was a success!

Old Tail Lights

The Newbies

Having Money Tickles Desires

Why oh why must I see all of the cars I desire on a daily basis on my way to work or in the garage of my apartment complex?  Here are my top 5 cars that I would die to get my hands on.

#1 . BMW M3

Ah yes, this gorgeous piece of ass.  The 2007 body style of the M3 was my all time favorite, but these new ones are starting to grow on me.  Being a BMW fanatic all my life, after my dad’s owning of a couple, I dream to one day own this top of the line 3 series, dubbed the M3.  Of course the price tag is well over 100k, but what can you expect from a 420hp V8 engine that blasts its way from dead stop to 60mph in a heart racing 4.5 seconds.

#2 . BMW 335i

I know, you are currently saying “what? thats the same car!”.  Au contraire!  Apart from the lack of the M style badging, the 335i does have a slight resemblence to the M3.  Of course, the difference is mainly under the hood.  Being bmw’s high performance 3 series model, sin the M models, the 335i rips through the lineup with a twin turbo charged 300hp engine.  The car checks in at about 40k starting price, again, just a tad out of my money range for the moment, but you can be sure that I would trade in my bed for a day with this car.

#3 . Infinity G37

I never used to be much of an infinity fan, until one of my friends purchased a G35 back in 2005.  Now with the latest release of infiniti’s G series beast, the G37 looks to compete with cars like the 335i in the performance market.  The specs of 3.7 liter, 330hp place the G37’s engine one step above the 330i’s, but the twin turbo’s and bmw’s superb engineering give the bmw enough kick on the dyno to beat the g37 most of the time.  However, I wouldn’t pass up an offer to take one of these babies home.

#4 . Mitsubishi Evo-X

Simply sexy is all I can say about this car.  Just like the G37, no mitsubishi motors car ever floated my boat other than the Evolution series.  With its sexy styling, turbo charged engine, and massive modders market, this is definately one of the “boys toys” so to speak.  Hearing one of these wizz by on the highway with the blowoff valve on the finely tweaked turbo charger makes my body shiver….Starting at about 33k, it is definatly a car to get your arms wrapped around.

#5 . Chevy Corvette ZR-1

Oh my, an american car on the list?!  Well this one makes an exception.  The ZR1 being the most powerful Vette that Chevy put on the market should make anyones top list.  At 100K, this carefully built piece of fine machinery will rip your heart into the backseat at the push of a pedal.  A reported 3.5 second 0-60 time places this 638hp car among the sexiest and fastest commercially available vehicles.

More Problems Lead to Cosmetic Change

Back in 2002 when I purchased the civic, I got a great deal on a rare car, and figured I would take my chances on making it more rare by asking the dealership to swap the stock tail lights on the car with the car from the showroom.  The show room had clear lens, or “altezza style”, tail lights which back then was still considered “cool” to have.

After a few years of having the car I realized that I made a poor decision, and was indeed plagued by the fact that I traded in stock tail lights for a poor excuse for a short lived fad.  I have been wanting to change the lights, but never really had the spare change or important need to go ahead and do so.  Well let the needy plane come in for a landing.

For a while now I have noticed the epoxy holding the lens of my tail light start to wear out, thus causing the lens to start peeling off.  It is still on there pretty sturdy, but is just obnoxious to look at, albiet not obvious unless you know about it.  Either way, it gives me a chance to change the tails and make my car look more respectable.  Introducing the newest cosmetic change to the civic:

They look exactly like the stock 2004 civic tail lights except they use LED’s for the brake lights, so that will hopefully look cool, giving a unique appearance, I guess we will see.  The wiring will require some modifications as the 2004 wiring is a bit different than the 2002, but I’ll post pics of the process.  The shipment should be in tuesday.

Sore all over

Well I am just wrapping up my first week back into bulking, and soreness has never felt soooo good.  After haggling a bit and managing to get a membership at the Y without having to pay any startup fees and getting a discounted membership, Pat and I have been getting back into the groove.  Starting the week off with Chest workouts, and ending the week with leg workouts, my entire body is sore to the touch.  I have been on my test stack for close to a week now, and obviously I am not “feeling” anything (at only a week into it, any feelings would be just a placebo effect), but I am very excited to see where it leads.  I have had a few spurts of lightheadedness today, but that could be either a lack of sleep last nite, my body reacting to a week of hard stress, or even my body’s reaction to the possible elevation of my test levels.  Hunger levels have been following the common trend of a possible increase in metabolic rate as I have noticed that I have been getting hungry at earlier times than normal at work, and I have been eating a larger breakfast.  So far so good!  And with my package BB.com actually sent me a DVD as a free gift that touches base on some more arm workouts and techniques, which has been great to watch as it has brushed up on some tweaks that have been helping out during workout sessions.  I will post updates asap.

My Top 5 Must Have Programs

Well there have been a few times where people have seen the applications running on my PC and have wondered why I have them, where I got them, and what benefits they provide to me.  Here is a nice list of my top 5 favorite programs that I have running on my PC, mind you these are in no particular order!

1. Digsby

AIM has always been the reigning king of the internet society, however backed by a wonderful network, their software suite has much needed tweaking, and less adverts to keep the honest user happy.  I used to use Pidgin which was a wonderful and simple IM client that interfaced with AIM and many other networks.  However, upon random browsing, I came across another wonderful messaging client, Digsby.  For those of you that enjoy messaging over AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Facebook, and ICQ to name a few, Digsby is an essential program.  Being fully customizable, without ads, and with a beautfully skinnable interface, you feel right at home.  You can monitor your email accounts, log your conversations, even post a widget on your website so people can IM you.  If you are an avid instant messenger, get this now! http://www.digsby.com

2. MediaMonkey

Apple has it great with Itunes, unfortunately for us Windows guys we are stuck with a poor windows import of itunes.  Sure, it works as it should, but being the resource hog that it is, there has to be a better alternative.  This is where MediaMonkey comes along.  Being like an itunes that was built for windows, Mediamonkey does a great job of intergrating a “whole-package” media player for your large media collection.  Having a customizable interface by being able to drag and drop sections of the program where you want it, like cover art, the music player, playlist, and library.  Being able to sync your music tags to  Amazon’s library helps keep your tracks updated with the most current information.  With a nice clean skinnable interface and a ton of features, its unfortunate consumption of 50+ mb makes this program well worth it.  http://www.mediamonkey.com/

3. RKLauncher

Lets face it, everyone likes to have a nice clean desktop, less clutter, and a means to get to your favorite applications.  Apple does it best with their docking system that keeps icons off of the desktop, and in an easily manageable dock.  Well, developers have been developing various docks for the windows system.  Although all work in a similar fashon, most come at a cost.  RKLauncher provides all of the benefits of the macs docking system for the windows platform.  Drag and drop all of your favorite icons to the dock, skin the dock to make it look like a mac, or any other of the thousands of skins developed, and you are on your way to a cleaner desktop http://home.cogeco.ca/~rklauncher/

4. Firefox

C’mon, honestly what is a list without firefox?  I will make this description small and to the point.  Firefox is safer, and follows the internet html/css standard better than IE.  Granted IE started to compete a little bit more with Firefox with its tabbed browsing capabilities, Firefox still takes the cake with its security features.  Various plugins can be found online that make Firefox even better like ad blocking, spell checking as you type, and many more.  http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

5. Mailwasher Pro

Spam effects everyone, no matter how cautious you are online, to how many times you watch where you enter your personal information, you will get spam.  There are a ton of ways to help rid yourself of spam but there are very few that work very efficiently.  I have used various spam blocking tools like Thunderbird plugins, to norton’s antispam, even to the University of Hartford’s Baracudda Spam filter.  Granted the best one I have ever encountered has been UHa’s filtering, its mainly because it utilizes a hardware engine, and like other things like firewalls, hardware always protects better than software.  In any event, my favorite program to defend against spam is Mailwasher Pro by Firetrust.  With a strong “learning” engine, the program is already designed to filter out the most common spam messages.  Entering each of your email accounts into the program helped protect all of your active inboxes by first scanning the messages on the mail server, letting you know you haev new mail, and marking them either “Friend, Blacklist, or Origin Blacklisted”, the latter of which is a blacklisting by the Mailwasher engine itself.  If you notice certain emails that dont have a spam note next to them ,you may add the domain, or the sender to the blacklist and Mailwasher will watch out for these emals the next time they come through.  Clicking “Process Mail” will delete all of the spam messages, and then open up your favorite mail program, getting rid of all spam before it gets to your pc.  This program is a must have in my books.  http://www.firetrust.com/

If you have tried any of these programs, or think there are better alternatives, please post a comment!