It’s one of those days. I’m not sick, but I did not sleep well, so I’m partly in zombie mode. Funny thing about days like this is that they usually come when you need to focus on at least one important thing. Today: self-assessment for work.

It’s a necessary thing that one gets used to over time but is still no less harrowing.

Even after all these years of steady work, I still think that I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to my performance.

On a brighter note, there’s more sunlight visible this morning. Perhaps my outdoor walks today will be a bit less chilly and breezy. I can always stand for less watery eye time during the day.

Hopefully, a combination of more sunlight and a few strategic naps are just what I need to make it through the day without crashing badly.

Image credit: Overwatch Wiki

On an entirely unrelated note, I’ve been missing Overwatch a bit more lately. Somehow, I put myself on an extended hiatus from playing it, but I think that with the Lunar New Year celebration kicking off in-game soon™, I’ll make a comeback.

I’ll still mainly play Genji, though. The world could always use more ninjas. 🙂

 

Featured photo by paul morris

If we were having coffee, I’d first agree with you that 2016 was a crazy year, but it’s also full of fun times.

After going on at length about the grand Star Wars celebration this past summer in London, I’d transition briefly into the surprisingly good gaming(and a few salty moments) had with Overwatch. I’d probably need a new drink at this point. After a brief nod to San Diego Comic Con, it’s on to Blizzcon. So much fun!!! Met a lot of gaming buddies.

Then we’re heading into the insane election and the somewhat troubling outcome, wrapping up with how we intend to keep our part of the world sane.

Happy New Year!

Inspired by and participating in: #weekendcoffeeshare

The $15 “Survival” expansion to 2016’s second most-intense emotional rollercoaster, The Division, seems to be a very good addition to the game. Emphasis on “seems to be,” because I can only extend so much praise to a clever but brutal game mode that keeps killing me. Read more…

via The Division’s New Survival Mode Is Intense — Kotaku

I’ve seen some play-through video of this expansion, and this review definitely makes me lean more towards getting this particular content. Sure, it’s brutal, but it’s not unreasonably so. It also doesn’t appear to be as complex and “without any hints” as survival Minecraft is.

Another Saturday, another convention. This time, it’s Anime Los Angeles, and it’s the second day. This is only my second anime-focused convention, and it’s certainly larger than the first I attended a couple weeks ago.

The main things noticeably different, to me, than a more general or even comic convention is that the vast majority of cosplays making their prescence known are anime-related, and there seems to be a higher percent (just guestimating that) of cosplay overall. A very colorful couple days this is so far.

I’m also making progress in my solo legendary playthrough of Halo 5: Guardians. I’m discovering that I don’t play as badly as I used to, and my “carry” through co-op legendary can soon be forgotten. Finding hidden weapons caches can help as well as careful coaxing of A.I. teammates to either handle threats, or become fodder (sorry) can help speed things along; against The Warden especially.

I was hoping for some writing inspirarion after almost 2 days without a post. Nothing caught my eye this time, so there you go!


I wanted to take a moment to say that The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is great. It’s hit that dungeon-exploring, puzzle-solving itch that I get sometimes.
I suppose that waiting to have a small gaming backlog shortening was the real reason for the wait to get a 3DS. 🙂

On my mind: Blizzcon.

Swag from Blizzcon 2008 - the first I attended!
Swag from Blizzcon 2008 – the first I attended!

This conference is a nearly annual event staged by Blizzard, who make some of the most popular PC games. It’s all about celebrating them and the fans like me.

There’s usually some news given about upcoming updates or expansions, panels with questions and answers, game demo stations, and even pro gaming tournaments.
There’s also a bit of pin trading action, but I’m not sure how serious I am about that. If I get some pins, cool, but it seems like some time-consuming work to get all the new pins. For me, if it’s a choice between a line for making an “official” trade of a pin and a panel, I’m going to the panel.

IMG_0115
Excellent Overwatch cosplay

This year, since the game that’s closer to its first release, Overwatch, is in its beta testing stage, I’m expecting more information for it to be released. Starcraft II has its last expansion out this month, and World of Warcraft’s Legion is not super close, but it’s close enough that perhaps not much more than perhaps a gameplay demo might be up, along with panels, but that’s still worth a look.

When I was initially composing this, I nearly forgot the most important, and memorable part: meeting up with, and hanging out with friends. Sure, that’s a highlight of most cons, but especially so for Blizzcon. You know that you’re not just fans of games in general, but that you’re fans specifically of Blizzard. After all, you’re going to see nothing but events, panels, demos, and merchandise that supports the franchise games of Blizzard. Making new friends as well as renewing current friendships, sometimes while unwinding between panels, or at the end of the show floor hours, are really good times to remember.

Those times approach again. Am I prepared? Maybe (say nothing, Illidan!)

 

Illidan ponders my preparedness

 

Super Mario Brothers. It was, I think, the first video game I remember staying up really late while playing.

Even though I knew shortcuts to skip levels, warp zones, I was determined to play through every one of its 8 levels.

We (my brothers and I) had received that, as part of the deluxe Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as a Christmas present, nearly 28 years ago. Before receiving this version, I’d only ever played this game for short periods of time at video game arcades, which I didn’t spend a lot of time in, before receiving the home version. Our parents were definitely more focused on our academic endeavors.

I was more excited to play this game than any other game I’d ever played up to this point, and I’d played a lot since our family also had an Atari 2600 system, with a healthy library. The NES really cemented my own lifelong love of video games.

I knew, even then, that this is something I’d be able to enjoy for a very long time, and even back then, I could not even consider that there would be a time I would not enjoy playing games. I still can’t imagine it.

There are, however, some games with the brothers Mario I have yet to experience. That’s mostly due to a few games being on my plate, as well as the hefty time investment it takes to finish current incarnations. Heck, I still have yet to complete Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii.

Mario Brothers games are also not the only franchise of games I lament being “behind” on. A franchise with another princess, whose name starts with Z, also challenge me to play, and I’m sad, being woefully behind. I would need a 3DS system to work on catching up there. Someday…someday…

Images: Wikipedia

Let’s dance to Joy Division,
And celebrate the irony,
Everything is going wrong,
But we’re so happy

I blame T for putting that song by The Wombats in my head. Please forgive me for spreading the earworm.

Anyways, it’s another Friday, and an appropriately gloomy one for Fall. The Dodgers got themselves eliminated in postseason play yesterday against the Mets, of all teams.

Today, I plan to drop off my laptop at a FedEx location to ship for RMA since it seems to have a faulty video card. This is causing system shutdowns and can’t be tolerated. Thank goodness it’s still under warranty.

Been playing a good chunk of Ori and The Blind Forest. It’s a must-play for those who love Metroid-style games. Plenty of exploration and tricky jumping-while-fighting-off-enemies and pretty awesome graphics are featured.

"Ori Kuro" by lanfanarts - http://fav.me/d8w1j7w
Kuro. This owl does not like Ori. At all.
“Ori Kuro” by lanfanarts – http://fav.me/d8w1j7w

I kind of want to see some speed runs of this game after I finish it. This game made my thumbs sweat. I totally recommend a play-through. Anyone want to share their death count? I just want to know how high mine might be at the end and I’m not that good at staying alive.

It was Super Bowl Sunday. I think I spent very little of it thinking about the game at all. I am not a football fan, although I do understand how the game itself works. Not having a local franchise, and having not 1, but 2 franchises leave the area during one’s lifetime has something to do with that. I have hope that the stadium under construction will change that, but it’ll be quite some time before any future team (returning or new) will be playing in my neck of the woods.

What did I do instead? It was not involving traditional television. I did a couple things, at the same time. I played WoW, working on one of the newest in-game professions: archaeology. The second, was I “tuned” into a live stream on Twitch, a bit for background, and also for something interesting during the somewhat tediuous grind of scanning dig sites.

A few streams I caught during the day:

  • http://www.twitch.tv/kylelandrypiano – musician and composer. Kyle plays piano, sometimes taking suggestions from viewers. Mostly game music being played, but some classical.
  • http://www.twitch.tv/gamej06 – Big Jon plays classic platform-style games and is pretty chill. Today he wrapped up his 18k follower celebration show
  • (as I type this) http://www.twitch.tv/monstercat – Monstercat is a music label that has stream-friendly music available for use on Twitch (since Twitch will mute the audio of recorded streams just like YouTube does when licensed music is played, this is a pretty popular label.) They’re streaming mostly EDM currently.

Back to the game, though. I have purpose in what I am doing in-game. I’m rather serious in working on adding to my account’s riding mount collection. Archaeology is actually one of the professions that has mounts available as some of its “projects”. There’s a random chance that the next one for specific types of artifacts will be for one of the mounts. My current target is a blue mount that’s a giant bug, which is summoned by an ancient scepter.

The choice of priority is not random. Years ago, I wanted a black version of this mount, but that one was time-limited, and only those able to play on a realm where the event that it is associated with not yet complete would have a chance to obtain it. Truly a legendary item.

This mount is surely a nod to those, like me, who had a fondness for Ahn Quiraj, but couldn’t be the Scarab Lord (the title awarded to those players) or level a character on a new realm that still had the event on it.

Also, I usually take my time going through the commercials since they’re usually available online for a while.

Super Bowl… blog about it. Are you watching? Ignoring? Just reviewing the cool advertisements? What are you doing today?

via Daily Post – 2.1.2015 – Daily Writing – Desk Community.