Well, here we are, if you are reading this, then you survived another year filled with a lot Garbage, but also the Glorious. 2018 was filled with absurdities, triumphs, and failures of epic proportions. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the Best and Worst of 2018.

Worst Technology that People Think Is Awesome: Virtual Reality 

Make absolutely no mistake: Virtual Reality is the future. In our lifetimes, we will likely see Virtual Reality ruin all of our lives, as it will eventually make heroin addiction look like aspirin. Once the tech gets sufficiently powerful, miniaturized, and cost-effective, it will make the worst Black Mirror episode look like a documentary. However, right now, it is utter garbage. Far too bulky and underpowered, it makes for a decent tech demo, but it’s nowhere close to the soul-crushing juggernaut it will eventually become. 

All Sports are Terrible, except the NHL

Yes, all of them. This has been happening over time, but now it seems that all of the soul has been sucked out of sports. The rules are such now that even a minor celebration will get you excommunicated. If you play defense, and you even fart in the direction of an offensive player, you’ll get penalties so harsh you’ll rethink your life. Let me tell you all something: If Dan Marino had played in this NFL era, people would think he cut a deal with the devil over what he’d be doing to the NFL. Then on top of all of this, we now have NBA coaches lecturing us and telling us what bad people we are. Sports used to be the one escape from politics, and now even they have been tainted. There is still one bastion of hope: the NHL. They still fight, you can still play real defense, and there’s virtually no downtime to check the replay booth every two minutes. 

The Death List

We lost a lot of true icons this year, from Aretha Franklin, Stan Lee, R. Lee Ermey, to Stephen Hawking. Nowhere near a complete list, 2018 was brutal on cultural icons.

Apple and the Curious Case of Bending iPads

Only Apple could have even tried to defend this and still be in business. Any other company on the planet would have been destroyed over even attempting to say tablets arriving bent wasn’t a problem. When the iPhone had the bending issue, they didn’t deny it, but this time, they were outright like “Yeah this is Ok.” They’ve since offered exchanges, but the unmitigated hubris of a company to even try this was unbelievable. Apple also gets another ding for App Store censorship, removing completely historically accurate strategy games from the App Store. 

Worst Entertainment Change: Comedy

Comedy has been awful for a while, at least since 2008, but 2018 comedy is horrific. So sterile and boring comedy has become, that I could not even name one single good comedic performance, either on TV, in the Movies, or stand up. Embarrassingly abysmal and devoid of any edge, comedians turned to the same recycled Trump jokes over and over. George Carlin and Richard Pryor would be apoplectic over 2018 comedy. I’ll say it now: the last good comedy movie was 2008’s Tropic Thunder. 

The winner of the Worst of the Year: Politics

All of the items mentioned above combined aren’t even 1% as bad the current political landscape. Relationships destroyed, families broken, real-life harassment and assault, 2018 has got to be the worst year in politics of my lifetime, and it shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

Now that we’ve slogged through the Garbage let us move onto the Best of 2018.

Marvel still Crushing the World

Black Panther, Avengers, Ant-Man, Deadpool, and Daredevil. Yet another year of not only dominance but excellence. The Marvel Juggernaut rolls on, with no sign of stopping, and I love it all. 

Hereditary and Horror Delivering Classics

I love horror, and 2018 was scintillating. Hereditary will go down as one of the greatest of all time, and we saw a litany of incredible horror movies such as Upgrade, Halloween, A Quiet Place, Mandy, Suspiria, Annihilation, and Revenge. That, by the way, is nowhere near a complete list. As a horror fan, this year was as great as any before, and one of the few genres to show innovation and take risks.

God of War Reinvents, and Dominates

God of War 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. When I found out they completely ditched the gameplay style I was ready to hate, but boy did they deliver. To change a great existing franchise to this degree, and hit a grand slam the way that they did, elevates this to Game of the Year, easily. Also, Red Dead Redemption 2 is overrated. 

Cobra Kai brings back the Karate Kid, and somehow doesn’t suck. 

I generally hate reboots and bringing back old franchises, but I have to admit, Cobra Kai was incredible. Every studio on earth should take note, this is how a reboot/remake/modern sequel should be done, and was one of the best TV shows of the year.

Best Promotional Stunt of All Time

IHOB. International House of Burgers. I am completely serious when I say that I have never seen a better promotional stunt in my life. They got the entire country talking for days and basically did it for free. I doubt we will ever see a better-executed promotion in our lifetime. People acted like they hated it, but it generated talk and controversy. And controversy creates cash. Well done. 

Best Use of Technology: Space X launches a car into space. 

Yeah, we got more rovers on Mars and whatnot, but how do you top Space X launching a freaking Tesla car into outer space, and returning successfully? You don’t, which is why this is on the list. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to colonize Mars. Unfortunately, this won’t happen in my lifetime, so I’ll settle for launching cars into space. 

So there you have it, My list of the Glorious and the Garbage of 2018. For myself, it was pretty good, I wrote one book and published it, and finished the first draft of another, and got into better shape than I’ve been in 20 years. 2019 is going to be wild, so buckle up. What were your best and worst of 2018? Let me know!

Steve Mager

If you enjoyed this article, please share it and follow me on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/StevenAMager
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenAMager
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_mager/
Get my book, Forging the Iron Mind: [https://amzn.to/2uxRvCs]

Hello, and welcome to the first in my review series entitled: 

Glorious or Garbage? 

We have a lot of choices these days in the entertainment we consume, be it movies, games, or books. We are living in the Golden Age of entertainment, in the sense that collectively, there is a nearly limitless amount of high-quality material for us to consume. Thus, in my opinion, there is no reason for us to be consuming anything mediocre; therefore we can do away with rating systems entirely. To me, there is no gray area, something is either utterly incredible i.e. GLORIOUS, and worth my time, or it is GARBAGE, and should be relegated to the dustbin of history. In addition, I do not even believe in falling into a life of consumption only, driving from game to game, or movie to movie. It is important to stay creative, active, and mindful of where our energy is going. Therefore, we should all be incredibly discriminating on the things we allow into our lives. So, without further ado, let’s see if Eternal is Glorious or Garbage. A little background, I played both Magic and Hearthstone for many years, achieving a Top 8 at a Pro Tour Qualifier and Legend rank in Hearthstone. I am not a professional, but I have some experience with these games, and wrote about them in my book.

Eternal is a Collectible Card Game (CCG) in the vein of Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone, and Artifact. It is developed by Dire Wolf, who also originally designed The Elder Scrolls: Legends CCG, before passing the mantle for that game back to Bethesda. The first thing one notices upon getting started with Eternal, is that it has a unique setting: the world of Myria, home to all sorts of craziness such as gunslinger mages with magical bullets straight out of a western movie, Yetis that pack snowballs with rocks, flying bears and snakes, and all manner of lunacy. The second thing you notice is the striking similarities to Magic the Gathering, as the cards have many similar skills, just renamed to something different, such as Trample in Magic being Overwhelm in Eternal. Also, it shares a few things with Hearthstone as well, such as the ability of your hero to attack, and several mechanics that leverage the digital nature of the game, that really wouldn’t be possible with paper cards. 

The more I played, the more striking the difference between the CCGs became. Magic and Hearthstone have ruled the paper and digital space for CCGs for some time now, and are vastly different. Hearthstone brings a far simpler design (which in many ways is an advantage) and a far more comedic tone, with goofy dialogue and situations happening nearly every turn. Magic, on the other hand, just turned 25 years old and has settled into a more serious tone. The art, gameplay design, and worlds are far less crazy than they used to be, and the comedy aspect is mostly removed. I remember when Magic used to have cards like Might of Oaks, with art depicting an enormous squirrel towering over the trees, and at one point there was actually a squirrel deck you could make. Lead designer for Magic, Mark Rosewater, has said many times that they are likely not bringing back some of the sillier aspects of Magic, and in addition, have adopted a more technical art style, with some of the more comedic and abstract offerings of days past being largely gone. 

Eternal slides right in between the two CCG juggernauts in several highly effective ways. One, it is far more complex than Hearthstone, and in a lot of ways, more complex than Magic, yet in some ways, is easier to understand. For example, in Magic tournaments you have a what is known as a sideboard, a collection of cards you may add to your deck after the first game in a best out of three format, to help against that particular matchup. Eternal has something similar, called Markets, except for one thing: they can be accessed in the middle of a game via Merchants, which allows for incredible gameplay and decision making by the player. I’d also point out that Eternal sports five colors, just like Magic, but the combinations are far more varied than they are in that game. Having 3-4 deck archetypes in one faction is plausible. For example, Rakano, which would be equivalent to the Boros faction in Magic, has at 3-4 serious competitive variations at any given time, which allows for an incredibly diverse metagame. 

The second thing you notice is how far outside the box the design gets. There are an incredible amount of cards that are just absolutely crazy that scream for you to make a deck around them for fun. Even though there have only been five sets as of this writing, there are more cards that are completely out of left field than the last 10+ years of Magic and Hearthstone combined. You will find yourself finding completely absurd combinations constantly, and card after card that you want to build an entire strategy around. Whether it is summoning the Four Horsemen, a gun that one shots an opponent, a board full of sand wurms, or crawling through the Argenport sewers at night with rats, the flavor and gameplay are nearly endless. For me, I loved the Yeti, a feral band of semi-humanoids that live in the mountains. With names such as Wump, Thudrock, Chunk Chunk, Crunch, and of course, Pok Pok, it’s endlessly hilarious to hear them talk in yeti gibberish, pack snowballs with rocks, and swarm over other players. There is also Praxis guitarist Diogo Malaga, who hits a heavy metal riff when he lands on the board. It’s funnier than Magic, but it also isn’t a complete comedy like Hearthstone. 

Third, they have done a great job at balancing, tweaking, and preventing many flaws in CCG games past. One of the problems inherent to card games is the randomness creating bad draws, especially in Magic’s mana system. Eternal has a similar system but has found many unique ways such as the mechanics Pledge and Transmute, to alleviate mana screw and flood, two of the most frustrating aspects of Magic. Also, being the digital format, they can alter problematic cards instantly, in a way that Magic simply cannot. Also, sometimes in card games, it feels as if you aren’t in control, that the game develops the way that it does and there is little you could have done to alter the outcome. In Eternal, there are numerous lines of decisions that can meaningfully alter the course of a game, such as the Markets mentioned above, but also others, such as the new Sites that present multiple meaningful choices in a row. I would also note that the Free To Play element of Eternal is done quite well, as you get a generous amount of gold and packs for playing.

Magic and Hearthstone are both iconic, marvelous games. I still play Magic from time to time, but make no mistake, Eternal is up there with the best of them, and is undoubtedly Glorious, but more than that it is worth your time, which in this day and age is a high compliment.

Steve Mager

If you enjoyed this article, please share it and follow me on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/StevenAMager
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenAMager
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_mager/
Get my book, Forging the Iron Mind: [https://amzn.to/2uxRvCs]

There is no such thing as a required exercise. 

Repeat it so you will process it.

There is no such thing as a required exercise. 

Many people spent a lot of years suffering through pain and injury, all because they do not understand that one small sentence. When I started lifting back in the late ’90s, it was basically Biblical law that to build muscle; one had to do the big three exercises: Squats, Deadlifts, and Bench Presses. Not only were these compound movements basically a requirement, but then on top of that, you were supposed to lift them with extremely heavy weight to induce muscle growth. For the better part of twenty years, I beat my body to death on those three exercises, sustaining constantly torn and strained muscles and joints. Everything related to lifting became an ego game for me, it was all about how much weight I could lift, and how big I could get. If only I had known then what I know now. 

The first thing you have to understand is that having the right genetics is paramount to being able to move heavy weights consistently. There is a guy in my local gym who is over 50 years old that can still deadlift 600 lbs. Understand that is an extreme outlier. Everyone has different joint and bone structure, which creates a dominant advantage for certain body types, which is why it is far easier for a person who is 5’4” to do deep squats as opposed to someone 6’4” with long limbs. Before you do anything, you need to assess your genetic capability. For a great many years, I completely ignored this principle, and just plowed through regardless. I actually took pride in the fact that I knew I didn’t have the best genetics for lifting, but that I did it anyway. It became a point of pride that I was 280 pounds and had over 1300 pounds in combined lifts. I was build like a juggernaut, bigger and stronger than a lot of NFL linebackers, but the entire time, my body was paying the price. 

First, my body structurally wasn’t supposed to be carrying 280 pounds, as I was not a natural mesomorph body type. As a result, my feet and knees were always in pain carting around that much weight. I was never comfortable during any of the “big three” exercises, as the barbell continually forced my joints into uncomfortable positions, which meant that I was constantly bearing shoulder and back pain as well. For year after year I put my body through the meat grinder, not understanding one simple truth:

There is no such thing as a required exercise. 

Understand this; there are two types of muscle fibers:

Fast Twitch 
Slow Twitch

And they don’t give two shits what exercises you do to stimulate them.

They don’t give a damn if you use a straight barbell, or two dumbbells to work chest, they only care about one thing: 

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD.

Progressive overload means that to induce muscle growth, you have to challenge those fibers with weight and movements of which they aren't accustomed. And the fact of the matter is that you can achieve progressive overload on the muscle fibers without doing joint-busting exercises. You can stress those fibers and induce growth without ever touching a traditional barbell deadlift, squat, or bench press. Now let me preface this by saying, if you are genetically capable, and can do these exercises safely, then I do recommend them, especially the deadlift. There is a very fine line between not being genetically built for them in reality, and convincing yourself you aren’t to absolve yourself of hard work. Be honest with yourself: if your shoulders are developing pain from barbell bench presses, then go use dumbbells instead. Take a look at two of the greatest bodybuilders of all time:

Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwartzenegger.

These two men arguably possess the greatest chest development of all time. Both did bench presses with a barbell once in a while, but neither did powerlifter level weight on those exercises, instead relying mostly on dumbbells for the superior range of motion. I can attest to this myself, once I ditched the barbell and started on exclusively dumbbells for chest work, my shoulder issues reduced dramatically, yet I still had a massive chest. Twenty years later, I’m a whole lot older, and a whole lot smarter. If one exercise irritates you, do a different one. There are a thousand variants of every exercise.

Do barbell back squats bother your joints? Then try Front, Pistol, Goblet, Sumo, or any of the hundred other squat variants. For me, regular squats and deadlifts felt fine the majority of the time; the real problem came with the flat bench press, so that was the exercise I needed to replace. 

Here is the only thing that matters to muscle growth:

Overloading the muscle fibers to stimulate growth, and then eating enough calories with sufficient recovery. It is not rocket science, do not allow yourself to fall into rigid doctrine as it relates to fitness. If you overload and stimulate the fibers, and you eat enough calories, you will gain muscle. Some try to over complicate these basic principles, but at the end of the day, this is the principle that matters, and you can do it without doing exercises that break you. 

That being said, it sure was awesome deadlifting over 500 pounds. 
10/10 - would recommend that feeling. 

Now go crush it, just not yourself in the process. I would be interested to know if any of you had an exercise you needed to replace, and what you did about it. Let me know!

Steve Mager

If you enjoyed this article, please share it and follow me on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/StevenAMager
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenAMager
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_mager/
Get my book, Forging the Iron Mind: [https://amzn.to/2uxRvCs]

If you trained hard in the late ’90s then you know one supplement came as close as we’ve ever gotten to a magic bullet for weight loss and energy:

Ephedrine. 

This supplement, found in iconic products such as Ripped Fuel and Stacker 2, along with the venerable ECA stack (Ephedrine, Caffeine, Aspirin) fueled innumerable workouts of myself and my friends. These products were capable of elevating a lousy workout to good, and good to exceptional, based on the seemingly never-ending font of energy they produced. For years, I took these products in frankly unsafe levels, getting to the point where I was overdosing nearly every day, just to get that jacked, machine-like rampage going in the gym. I remember nights of partying and drinking, then waking up on 4 hours of sleep, popping a few Stacker 2s, then going berserk in the gym. Even if I was utterly wiped out, this pill could bring me back from the brink, and power up a great workout. 

Such was the power of Ephedrine. 

No supplement, before or since (save steroids and prohormones) has produced such a noticeable effect on energy levels and weight loss. As a matter of fact, no one even tried to argue it wasn’t effective. So how did a supplement, the core of which had been used in Chinese medicine since the Han dynasty with over 2000 years of history, get banned? The same way a lot of the first wave of Prohormones (over the counter steroids for all intents and purposes) did:

Baseball, coupled with pharmaceutical and insurance companies. 

The FDA had been looking into Ephedrine since the early ’90s, but nothing serious ever came of it, given the long history it has had globally. They would issue a report or white paper, call it a day and move onto the next thing. Then, on February 16th, Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler died after a workout, and subsequent toxicology showed that he had Ephedrine in his system. This was all the impetus needed to move on Ephedrine, even though he had multiple other health issues, and had overdosed Xenadrine on a hot day without hydration. Even the doctors stated that they could not conclusively prove ephedrine was the cause of death, and many others have died of heat and exercise problems without Ephedrine. In the wake of this death, paper after paper was released detailing the potentially harmful effects of Ephedrine. 

Immediately, within one month, the FDA issued proposed rules to regulate the supplements, and in less than a year, a blanket ban on Ephedrine had been issued. Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the government resolve anything this quickly, but here we were, watching a supplement used for thousands of years get banned despite a complete lack of factual basis. The key to this whole thing is understanding that the FDA bows to pressure from outside groups and utilizes tainted scientific data. In my book, I showed how Coke paid scientists in the ’60s to shift the blame from sugar to fat for obesity and heart disease, to keep people slugging down sugary sodas. The FDA is the organization that spent decades recommending an aspirin a day, only to retract the recommendation many years later. People would even have side effects from an overdose of ASPIRIN, showing that any drug can be potentially harmful. Banning cocaine, or heroin, or steroids were one thing, but the Ephedrine ban was the first moment I can remember where the government banned something that was only theoretically dangerous. In the wake of the Ephedrine ban, many more effective supplements got the ax as well. 

So, how did this all happen? 

Take a look at all of the most effective supplements that have been banned, or are in the process of being prohibited or restricted. Ephedrine, Glutamine, CBD Oil, and even Prohormones are all highly effective, and also dirt-cheap. These have either been banned already or are on the chopping block. In addition, they all have prescription alternatives that are insanely expensive. Adderall, Testosterone Replacement and the like are prescribed like candy and are not only more expensive but highly addictive. Take a look at TRT (testosterone replacement therapy). In the old days, if you wanted to get jacked, you just ran a cycle of over the counter Androstenedione, the supplement that Mark McGwire took when he was blasting baseballs into the stratosphere. It would amp your Testosterone levels, you’d get jacked, then come off of it for a while and everything was great. Sure enough, Andro and its variants were too effective and too cheap. Andro gets banned and placed in the same category with actual steroids; meanwhile, Big Pharma comes up with a way to keep you jacked 24/7/365 by completely replacing your natural testosterone production, and calling it TRT. So now, instead of popping some cheap Andro for a few months, then taking some time off, you now get to completely replace your natural testosterone production, for a nice tidy monthly payment, since coincidentally, no other method is legal. All you have to do is never come off of it, since it completely stops your testosterone production, permanently. Better hope you never lose your health insurance package on that one. 

I used to think the banning of supplements was just a sort of nanny state overreach by the government. It is, but keep in mind, these FDA and government officials have been shown information that they believe to be correct. Not all of them are corrupt bureaucrats, rubbing their hands together like super-villains, most are probably actually being deceived. The real question is who commissioned the studies that showed Ephedrine to be dangerous and presented them to the FDA? Which group got paid for the studies? What about Andro? Who stands to gain by a particular supplement being banned, when there is a permanent pharmaceutical replacement available at a much higher cost? Remember, the next time you take some absurdly expensive prescription and pay a ludicrous amount each month for insurance, that at some point there was likely a dirt cheap version that got shoved off the life raft in favor of prescription medication. 

Steve Mager

If you enjoyed this article, please share it and follow me on social media:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/StevenAMager
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenAMager
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_mager/
Get my book, Forging the Iron Mind: [https://amzn.to/2uxRvCs]