Ryan J.com

I went with Sheryl to the Naptown Roller Girls their first bout of the season Saturday night.  It was surprisingly a lot of fun.  I've never been to a roller derby before so this was an entirely new experience. The action was non stop from beginning to end.  Two hours of excellent music and a great deal of fun.

They came out pretty strong in the beginning but the other team prevailed in the end.  I could see doing this again.  My only complaint being that I didn't think to bring a mat... 2 hours of sitting on concrete isn't cool.

Clint Eastwood's new film Gran Torino does well to spread the word of who the Hmong people are and why they are here. This film takes special meaning to me since my girlfriend JoAnn is Hmong.

Eastwood plays the role of a miserable and bitter Korean War vet that has but one remaining love... his flawlessly maintained 1972 Gran Torino.  Without spoiling the movie all I will say is that initially Eastwood's character "Walt" wants nothing to do with his Hmong neighbors but eventually finds himself protecing them from the local gang members.

I was either laughing or completely drawn into the moment from starting scene to finish.  I had never heard of the Hmong people prior to JoAnn... I hope this film makes Americans a bit more aware of their presence.  Definitely a good movie to check out!

There is a new version of Live Messenger out and it is pretty amazing.  One of the coolest features is the ability to have a client running on more than one machine and access the conversation on both.  Say you've got two boxes running in different rooms and want to be able to respond wherever you are, now you can.  You can also customize the appearance a great deal.

On to our next topic.  You know those extremely annoying advertisement features packed into Live Messenger?  Well, the new version is no exception.  Today while talking to someone at the office he mentioned finding a tool that removes these advertisements.  I had to check it out!  It is called A-Patch and is currently being distributed at http://apatch.org.  So what all can it do?  Right now, it is still in the works, since Messenger 2009 is still fairly new... but here is a list of the current features:

1. Remove Advertisement (contact list)
2. Remove What's Hot Section
3. Remove Nudge Delay
4. Disable Nudge Shake
5. Accept more than 3 file transfers at a time
6. Polygamy (Multi-MSN)
7. Shorten Status Info in Info Bar
8. Remove Advertisement (message window)
9. Remove "says" Text (english only)
10. Remove Billing Info Menus

Enjoy!

It has been a while since I have wrote... the Holidays are always a rough time. You would think I'd have more time but really since I'm going all over the place to visit with people I end up having less. I spent all of Christmas with my parents which was nice and relaxing. Dad and I saw Valkyrie on Christmas day - we both enjoyed it. Apart from that the best part was watching my nephew open the Christmas presents we brought him. He is 2 coming up on 3 soon, so he gets really excited about it and can't seem to figure out which toy to play with. I'll post some photos I took later on when I'm home after I find my camera. I seem to have misplaced it somewhere between my parents and my apartment.

For New Years JoAnn and I went to her cousin Sarah's place. We played Battle of the Sexes, drank beer and got to know one another It was rather interesting since it was 3 white guys and 3 asian women. It was the first time I met Sarah; I can tell why JoAnn looks up to her like a sister. We had a lot of fun talking about Hmong culture, social issues, etc.

The holidays were great this year... and I am totally not ready to start the daily grind up again.  I am also goign to take a class or two this semester.  That's all for now.

About a month and a half ago I started using Cytosport's Muscle Milk (Naturals).  The claim is this:

Muscle Milk helps grow muscle faster than gainers, whey or even creatine. This increased muscle growth is possible because Muscle Milk is the first product patterned after Nature’s ultimate anabolic food—human mother’s milk. Locked within the composition of human mother’s milk are long-held secrets to muscle growth potential. We took the next step and actually duplicated these important muscle growth factors into Muscle Milk. Muscle Milk helps you grow muscle like never before.

So what is the verdict?

Flavors & Texture

Chocolate w/ skim milk: WOW.  This tastes like a damn chocolate milk shake!  Seriously, this is the best tasting protein mix I have ever tasted.  I've never found a mix that made me actually feel excited and guilty to drink but this definitely hits the nail on the head.  I would compare it to drinking a brownie of awesome.  I didn't experience anything gritty from this.

Chocolate w/ water: Okay, not AS good as with milk, but this still tastes excellent.  Add a couple of ice cubes to your water before mixing and you are ready to go.  As before, no grit, so this is by far the choice of the three for me.

Strawberry w/ skim milk: I'll give this 4 out of 5 stars.  It is still pretty great tasting and I can see using this if I need a change.  It doesn't cause the guilty pleasure sensation of the chocolate flavor.  I didn't notice any gritty texture mixing with milk.

Strawberry w/ water: Alright, still tastes good... but I have to say I experienced the gritty texture slightly.  Not enough to really bother me but it is still there.

Vanilla w/ skim: I was rather disappointed with the Vanilla.  Perhaps it is my taste buds, but it really doesn't compare to either of the two previously mentioned flavors.  I won't be buying Vanilla again unless I want to mix it with fruit or something else.  Out of the three this was the grittiest of them.

Vanilla w/ water: Hmm.  While this still beats the typical protein mix... this wasn't all that great.  I ended up having this obvious after-taste and gritty feeling in my mouth for probably 10 minutes after consuming this.  By far the loser.

Overall experience.  Does it work?

I have not been using this before I go to the gym.  If I start, I will update this post to reflect that.  I have however noticed decreased recovery times since I started using this before bed.  Prior to using Muscle Milk I would mix a whey protein shake at this time.  I would wake up at 4am having to use the restroom starving with a feeling in my gut like I didn't eat dinner.  Since I started using this before bed I no longer wake up feeling this way.  Instead, I wake up feeling like I did before I went to sleep.  I'm very impressed by this product and would recommend it to anyone looking for a shake mix to use before bed.  I'm sold.