Turning in Early Tonight but first...

I shall blog!

Ended up getting 5 hours of sleep last night partly due to my own fault of watching Kaiji till about 1 am in the morning however I had already formulated a plan to work around this. Due to this weekend I had 2 cans of Blue Streak (cheap caffeinated drink) left over so I decided to have one this morning. As a result it did its job well and began to make me sleepy around 7 pm in the evening which I'll eventually get to. Got to work at about 8:05 and it was a fairly slow day of testing scripts for my release tomorrow morning. Also talked to a fellow co-worker about LoL, HoN, and board games. As he described LoL to me I tried to remember why I choose not to play it but honestly couldn't remember as it had been sometime sense I consider playing it. I mean its free so its a bit odd why I wouldn't play it. In either case the rest of the day consisted of more script testing and that's about it.

Have to admit one of the most wonderful parts of the day was driving home in the rain as I just enjoy wet weather as a whole (i.e: Snow...ya those are the only two I can think of, dry thunderstorms are alright too). Spent the rest of the evening reading articles on LoL and rediscovered why I didn't like it. The fact that you don't lose gold on death and there's no deny system is a bit silly assuming that some of the creators from Dota worked on it. The other activity I attend to was watch some Kaiji. That's pretty much my day I haven't had a chance to clean the bathroom mostly because my dad was asleep when I got home and his right beside it. On a more awesome note I finished my month of 'reducing cost' with better results than I was expecting (then again wasn't sure what results to expect). Equally I'm trying to suppress the urge to buy a PSP or a random board game to celebrate lol. It was mainly a gauge to determine how low I could bring my cash flow when I choose to move out in the near future.

As for the rest of this evening probably gonna go upstairs and read some 1984 before lying to rest tonight. The week ahead is looking fairly good too Friday is the Protomen concert and I get to hangout with some friends from Magfest and Saturday I'm attending a B-Day gathering. Mid week is looking fairly flexible in the fact that if friends wish to hang out I'm totally game and if not I plan to play through a bit more Greed Corp, Aquaria, practice the harmonica or read a bit more 1984.

In either case I'm a good bit tired and surprised I was even able to stay awake to blog this. Not sure what 'free' topic I'm gonna do this week. Contemplating on another game review or creating a game on potential video games/board games I'm looking forward to this year. Will see.

And on that note off to upstairs to read and sleep night all!.

Review: Greep Corp

This post actually has a duel purpose. First is to test to see if this post will integrate to my facebook correctly and post a link on my wall for those to reference. As of recently I haven't had any real urge to continuing being on facebook due to a multitude of reasons (feels more like acquaintance book each day and status are basically a big tweet being the two major factors) and figure this could be a workable even ground. Dropping it all together would be a bit extreme (though I'm fairly close to that point update it once a week) but without any further ranting lets begin.

Background:

Greep Corp is a game that was released fairly recently by a developed by W!Games who are also responsible for another title known as 'My Horse and Me'. For those already familiar with Greed Corp this may seem a bit odd. At least for me it seemed that way as one is a turn based territory destroying RTS while the other game involves tending to your horse. In either case I guess the first game was a springboard to see how could handle developing games while Greed Corp is definitely a leg up. I would assume this though as I have not played 'My Horse and Me' and have no intention to do so. Though it is notable that this is another developer from European region which as of late it seems that spur some of the greatest ideas for game design.

Initially Presentation:

When loading up the game (via Steam at least after the whole installing Direct X for the billionth time) your brought to an intro which shows the world falling about and explains the plot how several groups of people are attempting to strive, survive or profit in the current set of the world. The animation style in itself is pretty 'quote' in how the creatures kind of have a pixar robot feel to them. Equally the title screen is pretty inviting as there's two options that stick out in the middle of the screen 'tutorial' and 'how to play'. How to Play is basically a text based version of the 'tutorial' while the 'tutorial' gets into the dirt and details of how the game as a whole functions. I spent a good solid hour in the tutorial learning all tips and tricks. None the less the game definitely has an inviting feel.

Gameplay:

As mentioned previous the game plays like a turn based RTS where its your objective to basically eliminate any opponent. If your the person to finish off the opponent you reap the benefit of some of their resources. There's several based units such as Harvests (which gather gold) and Workers (which are used for attacking/defining). The methods of winning combat are far from RNG and based on if you have more units then your opponent, if you do you win the space (<3 Hexigons) if you don't they keep the remaining units there. If its a tie you claim the space but can not use it (equally even if you claim it you can't use the space till the following turn).

That's basically the combat portion the resource portion involves the Harvest which basically gather gold from each hexigon around it along with lower the terrain around it by 1 height. As a result of Harvesters being on spaces eventually the territory is destroyed and the player has to make sure to keep their own units off of it when its destroyed. There's also a strategy of self-destructing it to destroy near by enemy units or buildings. Speaking of buildings there's 2 types one I can't remember the name of that produces units while the other is a cannon which can have have shells loaded into it to attack units on other islands (due to the Harvesters).

The last bit is a utility device/unit which allows the transport of units from one location to another. Though it can be fairly expensive to purchase one and maintains ones defense. This is basically everything you learn in the tutorial. Minus the basic strategy that can be used against the beginner opponent which is dump as bricks but you can't let up on them or they will make some kind of silly plan to counter attack you from an island 5 spaces away.

That's the title as a whole.

What's left to be desired?:

Similar to Swords and Soliders there's definitely a lack of hotkeys that need to be avaliable. There's of course a quick and easy way to move a large amount of units at once however there's still a good it of clicking going on. The plot is definitely immersing however I do wish what they describe at times matched the scenery of the area your fighting in. Its hard to imagine that your in a swamp or by a river when a lot of the combat has a 'jetson' up in the sky sorta feel. Those are my main griefs after finishing the first campaign but everything else feels pretty solid.

That's about it for my review and test post now time to publish and see the results :).

Weekend seems to progress well thus far

Overall this weekend has treated me fairly well and been somewhat eventful. If anything I've tamed myself in the art of staying put like a house dog and resisting the urge to go out of the house simply for the sake of well, getting out the house. However there's always the possibility I might escape at the later hours of the day, we shall see though. Starting with Friday I believe would be best and then progress on to the weekend up till now. I felt posting now would be a good idea as I'm currently on a HoN break and its about an hour before Sunday which should be more than enough time.

Friday:

For once I actually got work pretty close to on time which I was quite impressed with myself for doing so. The actually work day was alright but could be better on some notes. For once I actually hit several road bumps when attending to a handful of my tickets. One in which I'm still kind of stuck at square one but sunk a good bit of time into it. Another in which I slightly baffled the team with one of my databases I had that was creating some odd scenarios. Supposedly I had chosen a recon/auction location which they sell unwanted cars to other dealer rather than to customers. Those two cases ate up a good portion of my day I did get to test my vehicle form again which seemed to go smoothly.

Once I got home I spent the majority of my evening just relaxing and play games. The game of choice for that day was of course HoN but after grabbing food I decided to watch a bit more Kaiji as I forgot how the first 'gamble' went in the series. I remembered bits and pieces of it but certain crucial points was causing me to draw blacks. Once the caffeine (drink it once weekend a month) ran out my system I proceeded to bed around 7 amish. The one odd note I must make is I put earplugs in my ear to prevent myself from waking up in the morning in case there was early construct being done similar to last weekend. Though I don't recall if I took them out again before going to sleep or when I woke up but they were sitting on my night stand the following morning...twas weird.

Saturday:

Woke up a bit early considering how late I went to bed. Left the unconscious state around noonish but I stayed in bed till 2 pm where I went downstairs checked e-mail and relaxed for teh most part till about 3 where I took my shower and got food. Watched a bit more Kaiji and sat downed and played Greed Corp for about 3 hours. The games not too shabby its a turn based RTS where the terrain is constantly changing and the players have to react accordingly. It can definitely lead to a lot of interesting situations where you think you won simply because you have the most territory/presences but even leaving one of your opponents alive can lead to a huge set back. I finished the tutorial then the first campign and looking forward to playing a bit more of it.

Once that was done played a bit more HoN and ended on an extreme spectacular note in which 5 of the people I played with recently shoved me with for random individuals I didn't know and won the match. I was quite pleased. Nothing much else happen I plan to spend tomorrow just relaxing, reading and cleaning the bathroom to start the month of March on the right step.

Off to sleep with me got way too distracted writing this night all :D.

Lemmings On The Move

For starters just wanted to state that I had not forgotten to blog yesterday but to be honest ran out of time. Though I don't have an urge to really blog today about my day but rather attend to my promise of having an entry about a random topic of my mind and going on a rant about it for a bit. While my days can vary from a good bit interesting (like the power outage yesterday) to the typically day having some deviation of thought seems like a good idea. For tonight's topic "Lemmings On The Move" going to go over I guess "follow the crowd" / "peer pressure". Without further a due.

For those that know what the actually creature 'lemming' is its not exactly what I'm referring to. While I must admit they are adorable creatures and probably have the same mindset as to what I'm about to rant on about not precisely the same. The first thing that comes to mind when I think 'Lemmings' is the old dos game in which the player is given access between 2-10 abilities and must exercise them to save a certain percentage of humans. A bit similar to the human race relating to entry into a certain colleges. Schools can only admit a certain number of students due to capacity, fire regulations, number of avaliable teachers and so forth. A lot of this stuff his fairly basic I mean the art of mimicry is learned at an exceptional young age and encourage in some respects. If anythings it the primary learning engineer of our brain.

Equally though that could be why 'TV' in itself is viewed as a non-constructive devise. It can certainly demonstrate a mass multitude of activities however many of them are difficult to duplicate with the exception of some children shows which seemed to do a fairly good job. On the same note though humans need a sense of interaction from other people otherwise there overall mentality can be completely different.

One element I certain do miss (partly due to the growth of online game and internet as a whole) is the arcade scene. There was a recently documentary that was done by Shoryuken forums where they obtain the views of various fighter fans prior to EVO2k10. Certainly there's the whole portion in which you can chat via voice chat, in game chat, and so forth but that distinct visible element no longer exist. Equally the whole concept of arcade beat-ups doesn't seem to have a major holding anymore. The most notable one as of recent has been castle crashers but even then the lack of a joystick and feel of the arcade makes it lack a bit luster. This is of course much more prominent in fight games but that's a topic for another day.

To get back on topic a bit I find that in the current gaming medium its no longer about what games are actually interesting but several other elements that play a role beyond game play. To name a few they are graphics, quotes, and everyone else owns a copy of it. Graphics seem to be a large factor and of course can be argued always has been a considerable factor when deciding to pick up a game. Though whole evolution of evaluating a title has of course increased greatly. In days long past one would previously go into a video game store look at the box, see how cool the box art is and from there look at the back of the box. In some cases the back of the box (similar to an instruction manual) may not even be read and based on the how it looked...it would either be rented or purchasing.

Purchasing a game back when Cranky Kong created the dinosaur was a fairly large endeavor. I specifically remember only owning about 8 GameBoy games before I retired it and got a GBA or choose to read instead (I use to read the Bible a good bit back in the day on trips back from where ever). Thus buying a game as a kid I guess would be similar to getting another TV for the home. Renting however was King and in some cases a luxury as I do recall an occassion in saving up enough to rent a Super Scope...that was glorious however never a Saturn...twas a bit much.

Back to my point in where graphics have always played some way of a role however there was a slight stagmented period in which game play seemed to be superior. This of course is during the era of SNES and Genesis prior to the advancements of 32 bits graphics. When technology could no longer make things pretty we (the game) as a de facto received some of the greatest titles I've played till this day. Sonic Series , Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, the handful of Final Fantasy Games, Zelda: LttP the list honestly goes on. The same of course can be said for the PC environment while we had Doom and Quake the number of mods are of course countless (any recall Simpson Doom Mod?).

However I'm not saying that the trend did not continue after this generation, if anything it may have improved in terms of how much punch we got out of our games. Where most roms had graphic and size limitations the compact disc would over come this and provide us with a few treats. I would say that this in itself is a blessing and a curse. On one hand if you make any sot of game now its capable of adding a great deal more length if your don't mind watering the graphics down from their full potentially (anyone recall blocky Cloud from FF7? or Crash Bandicoot looking a bit silly). On the reverse note though it did create the element of 'well you know people can now watch their games as well as play them and we don't have to invest as much in having the player play through crucial parts, we can show them'...I'm personally not a fan of this simply due to the reason that we rarely see games now in which we spend a good portion watching little bits and pieces.

However don't me wrong if done correctly it can be a fantastic driver (one that particularly comes to mind is the way in which Parasite Eve 1 demonstrate this. The first showing of the rat like mitochondria creature, the 3 headed dog at the police station along with the melting of the audience at the park...all well done) I just wish not to see it done to an extent where I'm sitting there thinking I bought a $40-$60 interactive film (Xenosaga and Heavy Rain pop in my head). This is where I feel gaming has kind of hit a rut (at least in the main stream) that and fear of trying new IPs.

The fear of trying a new IP really does confuse me though with larger gaming companies. Its really a sign of stubbornness which we as a consume (as a whole) don't mind accepting. Equally familiar in the movie industry however its a bit more understanding there. The fact that their investing millions dollars into a project their banking on a high turn around. That and word of math of a bad film can linger for a bit. The same can be said for a game however through possible the gamers own fault (I'll explain) we don't mind enduring redundant products from major developers or consider that its 'ok' for them to do that.

I'll start with why i think its our fault. Back in days long past we played games a past time and equally developers enjoyed making games not for profit margin but for the fact of knowing the crowd would enjoy them (<3 indie). This unfortunately is no longer the case sense gaming is such an obsess behemoth cash cow. Let's Miyamoto for an example shall we. Back in the day sof 8-16 bit graphics Miyamoto was free to make whatever games he pleased without any question. He would go to his group of programs and be like 'were going to make a mario game but this time his going to do, xyz'. Sometimes this would lead to great creations such as Mario RPG (with help from Square), Super Mario World, and say Super Mario World 3 (aka Wario World on the GB). Equally this of course had its failures such as Mario is Missing, Mario's Time Machine and several others I wouldn't hurt your memories with. Now a days Miyamoto has to go through 3 advisors before he can even start work on the project. Is there more at stake now? Of course but it would be similar to giving an artist a budget on a mural which would cover the side of a building. While I'm sure they have a budget its more of 'let them do as they please.

So before I keep myself up any longer what point am I getting at (Though I hate to rush my point, but I do need sleep). The influences which current exist leads gamers to believe that sense Sam Max and Clark are getting the latest version of Slipper King Madness that he himself also must get it otherwise he'll miss out on inside jokes, and possible rantage. For anyone that has played and quit any mmo with a group of friends you know the feeling I'm talking about. I just find it difficult to believe that many individuals will drop money on major IPs simply because 'they know they'll like it'. Take a game I say go out their and exercise that creativity muscle a bit. The one flow of the great age of information is that it creates an extreme structured and equally randomization of thought....

Bah almost side track but my point is... its best to be yourself and do what you enjoy, following the masses is silly and the only way we can truly tell a gaming company 'there doing it wrong' is with (which i hate to say) our wallets since the day and age has changed. Unless there Indie then they'll listen. Its kind of like my conspiracy theory with Warcraft. The reason why the patch process takes so long is Blizzard has to evaluate any equally number of things that will fix the game and equally make it more balance. Simply because if the game was perfectly balance no one would want to stick around. The hope is that if its unbalance then you sit around and wait of the next patch (or expansion cycle) and hope your class gets address, either that or a roll an alt either way Blizzard gets an extra 15 bucks. Don't believe me, look at the Shaman class and tell me how long they've been meaning to fix them... ya thought so.

Anywho I'm off to bed would love to rant more but need more than 6 hours. Nite all!

If Dr. Wily ate a potato would he turn green?

Overall today wasn't too shabby I'm blogging a bit later than I care for once again but can't complain none the less. As the week progresses I'm finding that there is a +1 to the task meter for each day that passes. For example my state check (refund) has been sitting at my mom's place for a bit, equally I found out today that possible my last paycheck from my previous Employer also arrived. I'm trying my best to resist the urge to book it down their to pick'em as I would like to hit multiple birds with a single stone if I hang out possibility is present. Though this portion was toward the end of the day which I shall get to...but first morning.

Woke up at approximately 6:30 this morning and had that typically feeling some/one may get when they know the alarm is to go off in about 10 minutes. You can choose to get out the bed early or just lie down for another 10 minutes and come to the reality of actually getting the day started. I choose the latter. Usually morning routine and for once actually was ahead of schedule by 3 minutes from getting out the shower. Though regardless of this fact I still wasn't at my cubical till about 8:03. Not sure if I'm actually caring at this point but I will have to as next week I'll need to arrive a bit earlier to attend to one of my first releases...looking forward to it as I did another practice session for it today and it went smoothly.

For the most part of the work day I spent updating forms as per usually and actually finished a good chuck of my work around 2:30 which left me kind of floating there. Equally I have to refresh all the databases I burned through so that's another 2 days I need to figure out what I need to do with. Part of me is thinking going above and beyond and writing a document for test case scenarios...if tomorrows really slow I'll make such an effort. Either that or document the on boarding process lol. Though time passed by fairly quickly as I listen to a good chuck of Book 6 of Harry Potter. I'll need to obtain another audiobook soon though as I'm guessing by the end of next week I'll be done with the series...again.

When work concluded I went on home and discovered that the front door to the garage was open...however all two of the spare cars were there. This definitely threw up a red flag so I entered and saw the second door opened as well. I continued to proceed forward and grabbed the giant wooden spoon from my dad's wall in case their was an intrude. Equally at the same time I called my dad on his cell phone. After a brief discussion it turned out that he was actually in a hurry and forgot to lock up the house before departing. With this relief on my mind I placed the Spoon back on the wall and proceed to start up dinner.

The formally retired Formen grill got to see a bit of use today as I cooked hot dogs on it. I was unable to locate the grease trap device so I used a plate which also elevated the grill. Usually it takes about 30-45 minutes to cook hot dogs the way I prefer them on it however in about 10-15 minutes they were fairly burnt and well cooked. Supposedly cooking them horizonal is the trick though I don't think it captures as much grease as it should... no idea though it did throw off my timing for cooking tatter tots though. I made them shortly after so no worries there.

After dinner listen to a 1 hour interview that was held with one of the HoN developers and played a few rounds which turned out well. Also gave Chris's recently Minecraft map a go and it wasn't shabby. Had the wrong mindset initially looking for an objective to complete but then I remembered it was minecraft so I started free roaming for about a good .5-1 hour. That was pretty much it for the day I plan to get a good bit of Aquaria in tomorrow if there's no hangout session and do a freelance blog. Though if I do hang out tomorrow then I plan to do this extra task on Thursday. It will definitely be attend to this week though.

In either case I'm off to bed have a light bit of reading I want to get done before sleep. Night all!

A Brand New...

Nothing!

Well got that out the way I was initially thinking that was going to take more time...on to the day which is Monday.

Woke up at the usually time and spent probably a bit more time with my mustache this morning than usually. Its starting to become a bit more unruly as of recently and I'll need to find some method of taming it. The thought of a mustache trimmer has come to mind but it would probably do more harm then help. A small pair of scissors might work I might go back to tweezers they work but are a bit slow. In either case as a result of this I got to work about 3-5 minutes late again...its starting to become a habit which I kind of need to break. One thought is going back to the showers at night deal which seemed to work for a bit though I stopped after a while. Anywho let me get on with my day.

Work today was alright and from my original thinking was suppose to be slow but then I got 3 databases refreshed which i could perform more testing and verification on so that ate up the rest of my day. Equally I forgot to place a new audiobook into my MP4 player so I finished that early (Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and was left listening to music. Which I don't mind but want to finish doing a comparison between Jim Dale reading and Steve Fry reading it. Though I did make a silly mistake at work today with not updating a file correctly but it didn't drastic effect the result of my testing. It did however throw me a bit off balance and there's a small bit of work I need to tend to tomorrow morning go provide a reasonable update.

Didn't receive any calls about hanging out after work so I went straight home from there. My dad and uncle were working on the porch when i pulled into the driveway. Thus far they've done an excellent job and wouldn't be surprised if they continued to work at it a bit more this week. As for myself I went inside and jumped on HoN for a game or two before going to eat. Ended up watching Kaiji and the latest Dragon Ball Kai episode during the meal and shortly after as well. Once that was done got another quick round of HoN in and spent the remainder of the evening cleaning the mini formen grill I had completely forgot about. It was a nice little cleaning sessions which didn't spawn me to clean more (thank goodness). I swear the cleaning urge in my family is definitely hereditary or something as my system sometimes goes on a cleaning spree from time to time.

The only task I didn't attend to were cleaning the bathroom which I'm saving for Feb 28th as to start the next month fresh with a clean bathroom. Didn't go running today though I did do some barbell lifting which counts for something I suppose. Haven't gotten to reading yet though I plan to do so in the near future (just waiting on cloths to finish washing). As I'm typing this I recalled I need to update my budget/document spending (which I've just done so). Aside from this the only other pressing things to attend to are basically trying to ease myself off HoN, finalize my inquiries for potentially roommates during the summer and that's about it. All the stuff that I wanted to attend to around the house have pretty much been taken care of so definitely plus there.

Think that's all that's happen today want to get about 7 hours so off to bed (woke up at 5 am thsi morning for some reason as well....) Night all!

Overall not a shabby weekend

Based on my blog entries the last update which I attended to was on Thursday. So I haven't taken the opportunity to elaborate as to what has occurred from Friday up till now (minus that dream I had). Overall thought it hasn't been one of those super eventful weekends (once again) which means that in the future I'll need to start devising ways to get out the house and have fun. Mainly referring to Saturday as that seems to be the day I spend most of my time inside and pretty much have no plans for adventure. Kind of need to resolve that as I do wish to go out on Saturdays or the reverse side just get use to the expectation that sense it is a Saturday there really shouldn't be a whole lot going on. Not sure yet but any who on with the weekend.

Friday:

The morning was pretty much the same. I've gotten fairly adapted to the whole art of waking up at 6:40 rather than 6:30 and still making it out the house at a reasonable time. The only time sinks I've noticed is actually departing where I have a tendency to talk to myself before I leave which results in me being 3-5 minutes late to getting to work on time. I'm sure I can fix this in the future that and actually making sure I have all my work stuff which is basically notepad and printed documents which I should get a folder for.

As for work itself pretty much more busy the whole day working on the form in which if you sell a car to CarMax and it has a lease on it and figuring out the various scenarios for that. I would like to schedule a release for this week or next week which would be great. I did bang my head against it for a bit but at the end of the day (around 5:05) I had a print out I was pleased with picked it up and made my way out the office.

When I got home from work I basically just relaxed and spent most of the evening playing HoN and watching Akagi. I was actually starting to fall asleep watching Akagi which initially I had decided to go to bed early. Though after taking a poop I realize Akagi was mostly making me sleepy so I made my way back downstairs to just listen to music and zone out (as its been a bit sense I've done such). I did eventually go upstairs and fall asleep around 3 a.m. and was awoke at 9 am the following day due to my uncle and dad working outside...weekends are suppose to be times of catching up on sleep. Totally didn't happen lol.

Saturday:

As I left off (before I went to eat dinner and watch something unrelated) I woke up Saturday morning around 9 o'clockish due to work being attended to outside. I didn't stay in bed to long and made my way downstairs. The day as a whole not a lot happen and to be honest I don't remember too much of it. I did sit down and actually start working on an Aquaria file. Took me about 3 hours to get through the first chapter (aka tutorial per se) and now I'm actually in the large exploration portion of the game. I plan to work on it more this week but not planning to beat it. Usually I try to fly through games as fast a possible but with Aquaria there's a crap ton of exploration so I plan to take my time. After I finished playing that I finished up watching Akagi and very tempted to start watching Kaiji soon. More so for the style of series rather than the actually plot even though there's parts of the plot that link to each other. There was a tiny bit of HoN on and off but not nearly as much as usually just due to a latency issue as of late...

Not sure why but at seemingly random portions during the day I get a reasonable 3-5 second delay. For those that play HoN you'll understand how nightmarish this is. Eventually I gave up on that and started playing Killing Floor. Have to admit I do miss this game and after playing HoE (Hell on Earth) difficulty I'm looking to play more of it in the future. Suicidal I thought was rough but this one causes my head to hurt just when thinking about it. For example (KF is a zombie fps based game) there's one enemy that with full armor will do about 15 hp dmg and 10 armor on Hard (what I normally play on) on suicidal the same creature can kill you in what hit unless you heal yourself at the right point. It was just completely crazy and really looking to level in that game on the off time or when not playing Aquaria.

Have to admit on Saturdays I've been having the urge to actually go out and do stuff (as every other day I'm commuting to work, hanging out with friends, or going grocery shopping). Saturday is really the only day I stay inside for the most part so I'll need to fix that in the future. I maybe repeating myself as I'm doing this entry in different intervals through the evening.

Eventually I did go to bed around 3 again reading 1984 (as it was far overdue and found myself waking early once again Sunday morning...

Sunday:

Pretty slow day overall except for that freak portion involving the dream and the headache. Spent the time around noon heading to Food Lion to get food for the week and discovered a Kroger that was near by and bought myself some Big K Pink Lemonade. Saves me about .80-.90 cents (yes redundant) per day rather than getting a drink at the cafeteria. I'll need to figure out a snack alternative though or give up getting cookies everyday...I'll figure it out. Fun little trip though.

After I got back played a few rounds of HoN with a friend as I saw he was awake along with another friend and I'm thinking about taking a break from that as well. When I mean as well I mean that I took a week break from Facebook and it turned out pretty well. There was two mean reasons why I stepped away from it 1) Got tired of condensing my thoughts down to a character limit. If I wanted to continue that practice I would just get a twitter account. 2) Its kind of a miniature sink that adds up after a bit.

I also announced that I would no longer be organizing hang out sessions i.e: trying to get everyone's schedules a lined to meet up and do 'stuff'. Reflecting back on it, it honestly doesn't make a lot of sense to me to devise all this when for the most part 3-4 of the people are in the same area. Would make sense for them to devise it out.

Ya but got side tracked spent a bit more time playing Killing Floor which I might go and hunt down some custom maps though I really wanna work on my perks. The main issue with the HoE maps is the servers are configured where if your not max level you get kicked. So I'll probably play through some normals to polish my perks up get some achievements done and have more to bring for next time.

Concluded the evening with blogging and devising how the following week will go but I can do that from my bed :). Night all I'll do freelance up date this week if no one contacts me to hang out.

Two Rare Occurances This Morning.

Normally I don't blog until later on in the day or at some point in the mid afternoon but there are certain situations where upon immediately waking up that I just book it downstairs, regardless of current time frames, and document a quick blog entry. Normally these entries aren't very long due to the nature of them. Without further 'beating around the bush' I shall go on about the dream I had this past night...

Ended up going to sleep around 3 a.m. Sunday morning well aware that the outdoor maintenance work my dad would be attending to in the morning would wake me up briskly at 9:30 a.m. This happen the previous night as well however I had a plan. From still having my earplugs from Magfest I gave it ago sleeping with those. Hover due to the nature of how I lay on my side it was slightly uncomfortable and decided that I would pay the penalty tomorrow morning when waking up.

It initially started off with myself and a group of troops (possibly friends don't remember the faces) had just finished assaulting a castle but failed miserably and ended up retreating back to base. It strongly reminded me of a match in HoN in which a team over extended itself and its last surviving members are not put up to an effort to defend. Each of us respectively took different routes to get back. One kind of resembled a low water river in Oregon Trail where you had to run past rocks and so forth. I'm not sure about the other paths as that was the one I took to get back to the 'base' per se. The location resembled a combination of my mom's and dad's house combined.

Visible from the outside was a screen porch with a door and filled with various lawn furniture which appeared as though it hasn't been used in quite sometime. Rest of the house was fairly basic from the outside but on the inside there was a lower level basement with about 4-5 rooms 3 to the left, 1-2 on the right. The team was tasked to board up around the house as well as seal of all entrance of possible entry. Before we knew it they had arrived though we weren't sure if every entrance was sealed. This fear was quick confirmed as their troops found a way inside and located a small group of us.

When I say troops/army and such don't think like military, marines, navy, that sort of thing...think more so 2 warring faction that have been pitted up against each other for a bit. For example I was wearing my usually cloths along with the rest of the group however the other army was...a bit odd. It was basically an army of let's say 'my fancies' which caught me way off guard. One of them did something to a comrade that is blocked by my 2% filter and I will probably never speak off, lol. Which at that point I heard pounding outside and woke up.

In the attempt to re-enter subconscious I lied in bed for about 2 hours trying to get back to sleep, however it was to no avail. It wasn't much the fact of the context of the dream I wanted to continue but more so along the lines of actually having a dream in the first place. The last dream I documented was back in March 3rd 2009...so give or take about 2 years sense I had dream in which I could remember (can be found here: http://tonberry76.blogspot.com/2009/03/really-funky-dream.html). Given though based on the current streak of dreams they are appearing to be a bit odd/weird. Equally though can't say I would want to have more dreams but I'll take the time to document my food as I heard that plays some roll. Intake was basically 4 slices of pizza, 2 donuts, some Hawaiian Punch, water, and ranch Doritos. Yes I actually eat health on occassion (i.e: weekdays for lunch is usually banana, yogurt, crackers, pink lemonade and cookies (should cut out the cookies or pink lemonade though...).

My reflection on this is the whole part revolving around the attack basis is probably stemmed to playing too much HoN as of recent so I might cut back on that. Not sure how Oregon Trail links to it as the thought of that game hasn't been in my mind for ages. The house has symbolism due to relating to home I suppose. 'Fancies', chose of securing location, and reason for the attack are still a bit odd to me and rather not speak openly to them as of yet, I'll have to evaluate that a bit more.

The second oddity (though pretty much gone now) was the fact of waking up with a headache...I almost never have headaches and to be honest I can't count them on 2 hands, this has been the 7th one I've had to date. I'm sure waking up from a dream from banging outside has to constiuted for it. No real deep analysis needed there. Though it would be neat to be able to bottle the headache and preserve it future purposes as to how it feels to have one.

That's about it for now I'll blog about my weekend later on this evening. Gonna shower take care of a few overdue things or in short get my day started. Thanks for reading :).

So ready for the weekend

Well as promised I plan to do a double blog update tonight as I missed yesterday and can definitely go on about how each day was.

Wednesday:

From initially reflecting back on Wednesday I don't believe a lot happen. At least after work but work itself was fairly busy. When I first thought I did all the work relating to one ticket it was pointed out to me that I completely neglected to test a couple workflows. I knew how the process worked initially but I wasn't familiar with how the actually workflows worked or where they were located in the application. So the major span that I spent working on yesterday was testing a great deal of scenarios to make sure the forms print correctly. Basically CarMax allows a customer the ability to sell and/or appraise their cars to them through multiple ways. You can have an order in which they just appraise the vehicle but does not sell it, another in which they appraise and sell it, another in which appraise sells it and buys a new vehicle along with it...the list goes on. Also there's variables such as single seller, multiple sellers, single seller with single buyer of a new car and ...ya it goes on. So that was all the time I spent at work yesterday. Equally I found out that I was submitting my time sheets incorrectly however it would not effect me getting payed the following day which is great :).

As for the rest of the evening (and it seems the later portion of this week I've been quite lazy at home playing HoN and re-watching Akagi as its overall a great series. There's still a few things on my list I need to take care of however there not super high priority so I haven't felt all that motivated to nail them out the way. I might get some of it done this weekend. Task I speak of are of limited concern such as organize bathroom supplies, ways to improve my already effective budget in terms of cost breakdown, and a few other thigns. There are a few other task such as reading, running, and cleaning the bathroom I plan to get to by this weekend. But at the time felt no hurry. That was pretty much Wednesday.

Bah I totally forgot to mention I ran into another geek there I've been talking to on and off. Supposedly he recognized me from when I use to ddr at VCU and we had a good chat about the days of arrows scrolling past along with current mmo environment. It pleased me that we were both in agreement of the whole 'slacking' relating to feeling accomplished when you play them now. I don't mean accomplished like 'yay we all did well' but more so the 'nice work dude your the first on the server to acquire this stupidly low percent drop craft item'. That sorta thing. Won't rant about it but was pleased to meet another person that had that train of thought. He also has a similar model Sansa MP4 player and I showed him the benefits of using Rockboxs....hopefully i can get him to convert >:).

Thursday/Today:

Today went down pretty well and overall can't complain at the overall progress of the day. Work wise I was still being kept fairly busy so quite pleased about that. For my meeting involving the work 'selling a car' work flow went well as I started going over every possible scenario I could think of. Seemed most people in the room were quite impressed not to mention it seemed a lot less stressful with a good bit of joking on and off. Their was one other meeting today but not much was done with it as the other member from another team wasn't in the office to discuss the details. I did find out one of the major forms I was suppose to work on that I had no idea how to approach is no longer part of my work. It was passed on to someone else that has a bit more experience in the area... I'm a bit mixed on this as on one hand it was one hell of a learning opportunity. While on the other hand there was a strong chance I would struggle with it.

Today I stepped away from the whole appraisal thing as it was slowly driving me crazy so I started working on another form which needs to be changed in 26 different states. Got another state down today so at my current rate I might be done by....sometime in March, at least one would hope. Had another chance to show the awesomeness of the MP4 player with its video quality guy was pleased. I really hope he comes in tomorrow with a RockBox installations lol. I did spent a small bit of time on appraisals but it was basically a dead end as I found out that the scenario was impossible due to the design of the workflow.

On the way home or rather to a friends place I did give my weekends plans some thought. Right now I'm stuck between HoN benge, Aquaria, Mother 3, and Zelda for games. Reading I would immerse myself in 1984 as that's far overdue. Part of me might go running as the weather is fairly nice in the evening now but will see.

The hangout session tonight wasn't shabby. Helped move some chairs to my friends truck which wasn't all that bad and then the rest of the evening consisted of Zombie Dice and Dominion. I didn't win a single games tonight but after not playing board games for so long I was just glad to finally play some. I realized the flaw in my domino strategy so I should be good for next time. Unfortunately (or fortunately) no tabletop tonight which is a slight bummer...might be one next week its suppose to be a FallOut style (not a huge fan of Fall Out with the exception of Tactics) which I figured anything is worth a go once. Also I was force to take home cookies....so lame, gonna make me fat +1.

After I got home jumped on HoN didn't see any friends on though so just idled for a bit watched a bit more Akagi and now ... I'm about ready for sleep. Night all off to bed with me :)

No updates for today. Perhaps tomorrow.

No real post tonight, bit tired and can't think 100% straight. I'll do a double day update tomorrow.

Cheers!

Where to begin...

Not really sure how to begin this one so I'm just going to start off by using the bathroom brb...

Alrighty back, and I figured out the best approach for this, just going to dive right into it.

Woke up a bit late again this morning as I only got about 5 hours of sleep and my urge to get out of bed was extremely limited. Though as I was getting out of bed I already promised myself that I would get to bed at a reasonable time tonight (hence why I'm crashing in the next 30 minutes or so so I can be asleep by 10:45-11:00). Still made reasonable time though even with being about 10 minutes behind schedule. Equally it happen again left a few minutes late and got stuck behind slow people...slow people drive me crazy. Was actually in the office today at around 8:05 which I guess official started the day.

One aspect of my job I truly enjoy is that there's very little down time and I find that I'm constantly learning something new about the sql tables/environment. Equally today I was pretty much at that point where I could work by myself without much assistance from others. Wednesday/Thursday last week was the first actually day that I could work and its definitely carried over to this week. The one aspect I'm enjoying is the lack of having a deadline on anything. I mean of course I'm working as much as possible to get it done quickly but creating the order does take a bit of time along with testing them. The other part I do enjoy is that I can't take my work home with me. So before I would work on a task till 5, take it home with me and then continue plugging at it. Still need to get adjust to the whole fact that I don't have to work on anything when I get home...its a bit odd.

As for the actually day I'm almost done with another form reduction request and just need to regenerate the forms tomorrow and present them to the person handling the request. Loving the part where I"m constantly busy always a good thing. After work concluded I went home cooked up some food watched a small bit of anime and then chatted with a friend for about 2+ hours. Whenever she needs 'logic' based discussion I seem to be the source. Feel like I'm reliving my high school years whenever that occurs lol. Though it did eat up a good bit of my time and won't be over ambitious today and will probably organize something basic like my closet.

That's about it for now today was fairly straight forward nothing new or out the ordinary. Assuming no other distracts occur that take up a long period of time either Wednesday or Thursday will be my best bet for something out the norm. I'm off for now though need rest night!

Fresh Week Ahead

I really should be in bed but between catching up on some games along with cleaning up and awarding myself with watching some anime it kind of resulted in me still being awake...that along with washing cloths and charging my MP4 player when it was dead...like 0% which never happens but I'll get to that.

This morning I got out of bed a bit later than I would care for and wasn't out the house till about 7:32ish. Based on my commute, which is down to a science, it takes me about 30-35 minutes to get to work. Got stuck behind Baron Slows@Greenlightsalot.com but none the less was in the office at about 8:05. Work wise it was a mixture of busy and calm. The person that normally reviews our work before it goes out to production was out last week so their busy trying to play catch up. A lot of the work I'm doing is very deep in research and running into walls which don't have immediate answers. I'd say probably around 3ish/4ish is where I was at a complete dead end and a lot of my questions won't be address until Wednesday when I have a meeting, which hopefully will generate some answers. After work was done went out to dinner and such with a friend to play catch.

Dinner twas at IHOP where she had endless shrimp and I had endless pancakes. Towards the end I couldn't finish all my pancakes (had 6 already) so she consumed the last 2. There was much talk about her rabbits b-day party which I missed due to well...budget wise as I'm trying my best to keep cost down this month partly due to a) Magfest last month cost a pretty penny and b) I kind of want to see how low I can go and use that as kind of a pseudo base line. Though after hearing about the absurd amount of cooking was probably best I stayed in. I'm hovering around 178 at the moment and don't plan to break the 180 again any time soon. Equally for the most part there seemed to be a lot of talking...that's about it. I don't mind talking myself but gotta mix it up with some means of entertainment imo. Her bunny (reason for the party) had a great time too chewing on various foods which were provide via the guest. She also found a new possible bf which is another +1.

I honestly didn't have too much to say myself as the last few weeks have been nothing but work and small bits of gaming in between along with nailing out the list of objectives I've been establishing on a weekly basis. She seemed to approve which another person on the approval wagon is always a plus. After the meal we went to Micheal's where she picked up a few things and then we parted ways. I wanted to leave early so I could get stuff done and get off to bed early... that was definitely not the case.

Got home and didn't really feel motivated so figured I'd play some HoN...had way too many crappy rounds and after an hour and half I gave up went off to wash cloths and organize my end tables. During this however my sister and her bf were over as well along with the new born baby. Which of course required a small bit but not a lot of my attention as my dad was handling most of it. Of course he was doing his silly 'hey look at your uncle the dork/geek/nerd over there' which to be honest doesn't phase me as I know that's my creed. Its like say 'hey look at my dad the old man over there'. Big deal wanna fight about it? I did finish organize my end tables but it took a great deal longer to organize than I originally thought.

Remember when you were a kid and you kept shoving stuff under your bed and eventually you look under their and find out that you some how created some creature from your worst nightmare. Kind of the same situation here. I no longer put stuff underneath my bed (broke that habit well over 7 years ago) but I do have a habit to place stuff on top of tables and such. Which once one table fills up I go to the next. The only exception is my computer area as I make it a duty to clean it once a week. In all honesty it wasn't really a lot of stuff as more so gray area stuff such as college transcripts, cd jewel cases, bday/xmas cards. Those sorta things where you might find a use for them or feel bad throwing them away. After about 2 hours though I finally finished that up and by that time my sister was heading out.

It was already approaching 10:30ish which I knew was my predetermined bed time but I said screw it and watched Dragon Ball Kai episode 93. I'll find out in the morning if its worth it. About an hour after that I was just chatting with friends and hear I am now...blogging but the blogging is a must. I must succeed.

Side note...If I don't end up going to a friends place later on this week I'll do another random 'unplugged/rant' session. It got a good bit of views (3 yay). Also special note to the Swedish visitor as I see the node pop up green now on the stats page.

Anywho I'm off to bed now thanks for reading!

Edit: Bah before I forget Portal 2 is now avaliable for pre-order...just sayin'.

Rounding up this Weekend

Overall this weekend was alright. Not nearly as eventful as I had originally planned, partial due to my own fault but none the less can't complain. Think I still need to get use to the fact that the weekend is there for relaxing and not working as I'm use to working on weekends sometimes. I'm sure by next weekend I'll have a solid idea of what I can do on the weekends and the best watch to approach it. Without further a due here be the rest of my weekend.

Saturday:

It was definitely one of those days where you look back at it and go 'exactly what did I do...?' which I don't mind having those days with the exception of a large portion of thoughts running through my head. Ended up waking up around 11:30 and heading downstairs to text some friends about possible brunch plans. Found out that they were still on set for noon and there would only be about 2 hours worth of chillage concluding around 2 pmish. The ride their is about 15-20 minutes so I figured probably not worth the effort. So I followed up with 2 people that were also attending and asked if they were game for hanging out afterward. One was a maybe the other was a sure so I let them know that they could/should contact me back once its all said and done with the brunch.

During this period I play a bit of HoN organize stuff around the house and get basic stuff situated. Played a small bit of Super Meat Boy as well and will probably sink a small bit of time in that in the near future. I didn't hear anything back from the other two individuals till 3ish where then it was just nada no real feedback what so ever about hanging out. Was a bit peeved by this so went on to play HoN saw a few friends on and ask when a spot freed up if I could jump it. It was confirmed that I could however they stopped after one round. Which at this point I was cool with that and waited around while playing 'disregard for gravity'.

Unfortunately my patience for Masocore games is not what it use to be. I still enjoy playing them as they pose a challenge most games can't even begin to offer today so I was able to truck through a few levels. Eventually the small group of HoN friends came back but were instantly full, for the next several hours. Kind of annoys me I asked earlier when the next spot would be free and sudden there's a line that I'm now in the back off.

However I am fairly good with plan B as that all Saturday was to be honest lol. Started by playing some solo HoN matches which was alright but stopped after a few matches. From their I went back into my anime folder and found an old series called "Akagi" and started re-watching that. Their was some Honcast I watched before it but "Akagi ate up the remainder of my evening was 'Akagi', almost feel asleep on the couch watching it which made me quite happy. Oh ya almost forgot to note I did read a good bit of 1984. Its got some hit and miss but overall keeping my interest...that was Saturday.

Sunday:

Sunday was a bit more of the same. No real plans or destination with the exception of just whatever floats my boat roll with it. Played a bit of HoN (to be expected right) and from their watched some HoNcast. A fresh tourney qualifier started up so I figured I would sit down and give it a watch. Their were mostly some unknown teams but a few of the matches were pretty good while others felt like something straight out of a pub game.

When that was done I spent sometime thinking about just some general stuff. One topic that came to mind was my budget which is going great so far this month. I'm basically testing to see how low I can go in terms of cost and if I can eliminate any additional cost. Won't be doing anything crazy this month unless its on a set path. The other objective I gave thought to was what board games I wanted to pick up for the future along with actual games. Its not a very long list for either of them which I was surprised. There's nothing on the Wii I want and PC wise Portal 2 seems to be the only one I'm interested in at the moment. No longer have MMO urges so that works to my advantage. I'll need to double check my PC list just to be sure but my board game list is definitely done. Then of course the list of things I want to get done on a weekly basis...this week should be pretty challenging.

Went a bit off topic which I apologize for. There was a point where my mom stopped by and dropped off a crap ton of candy...all chocolate. At first I had no urge to eat it but then I was feeling a lot of mixed thoughts so a caffeine buzz seemed like a good idea. There was much twitching and random blurting out of words after 2 cookies, a Reeses, a carmel heart, and a pepsi. It lasted for a bit but sense there were not many humans in the area the buzz turned into a sleepy stupor later. More Akagi ensued after that and now I find myself debating between another episode, Dragon Ball Kai 93 and reading some 1984... I'm sure I'll figure out something in either case I need to make sure I get to bed by 45 after the hour at the latest so without further a due sleep I go.

Night all!

And now for somethign completely different.

Changed my mind about blogging about today. One thing I've noted in my blog a couple times was the fact that I don't really do much in the sense of just outward thought 0n topics that happen to come to mind. So for a brief period I'm going to sit down and rant a particular topic. Not sure exactly what it is yet but by the time I finish writing this I should have something solid in mind... ah I has it!

Exploration Outside The Bubble:

Sometimes I can't tell my tail from my head. Ever been in one of those scenarios where you have multiple sets of friends you hang out with and you try to be yourself yet you feel that as a person people should constantly evolve and not remain static. When I first thought this thought it didn't make much sense as well, heck even re-reading it seems the wording could be better. Equally I guess it varies on each person definition of 'friend(s)'.

I defined friends as people who on a psychological level can get along and maintain a steady flow of conversation. This along with sharing general interest along with spreading said interesting for betterment or entertainment of the other individual. There's probably more substance I could add to it but based on just conversations and playing board games its good enough for me :). I'm still not a fan of 'watching' stuff with the exception of some niche shows (anime, animated series, citcoms etc). To me viewing something with a group of friends honestly kind of feels like an improperly utilization of time or void feeler per se.

True you have the opportunity to see their reaction and so forth but to me its kind of like going to a movie on a first date. You don't really learn more about the person and you both know you had a good time learning about someone else's creative image you both agree on. Then again there's always going to be that conflict view of 'hanging out'. For example a good friend of mine strongly dislikes games and doesn't see the point of 'pretending' to be something. My small child with an imagination cries on the inside at the thought of this as pretending is a prime source of creativity imo. However I feel that if you pretend to be someone else creation for too long you really hindering your own creativity.

To get back to my point I sometimes look at the individuals I hang out with and think 'what are they doing to better themselves', 'can they honestly look back at themselves 3-5 years from now and really notice a significant change in their life'. It reminds me of an individual at putt-putt I original saw about 4-5 years ago and he would always go to this one machine play the same game and then joke at me for playing ddr. On one note I kind of look down on him and think 'Is this seriously all you've been doing for this long' then I look at myself from his perspective. He sees this Blackican (inside joke) playing ddr, disappeared for a bit but his still playing. So am I much better than he is in terms of progressing. I can't judge him cause I don't know who he is as a person or what he does. Equally him same with me with his shrew comments.

So thus I find myself looking at the group of people I hang out with and thinking 'am I cool with this'. In college I've had a thirst for knowledge but it kind of died after working at Capital One and re-sparked recently in the last year or so. In the words of Scatman John 'I wanna be a human being, not a human doing', I just want to live to learn and not become mundane. Though then again I could be interpreting those lyrics incorrectly and slowly becoming that human doing by just constantly doing stuff. There's that one aspect in life where you have to just sit down and appreciate it. It is something I don't do a great deal and certain not recently with the job transition, re-learning SQL, hanging out with friends and the various other activities.

Though I do feel that I found a group of individual that shared a progressive sense of mind that I would either thoroughly enjoy it or become more like a machine of a typically schedule system. Its part of the reason I don't like my schedule now due to the fact that its very clockwork. Almost systematic. On the plus side though I don't have to work on the weekends now so I'm free to openly dumb all my thoughts into this blog. Something I haven't done in a quite sometime.

However back on topic I feel to find a group like that would be difficult. One in which enjoys learning new things on a constant basis and enjoys RP/Board Game elements. There's a group in Fredericksburg that kind of has that mindset that I would love to hang out with but the distance is a bit much. Unfortunately a perfect world does not exist just yet though I wouldn't mind building one that's fairly close to it. Its also like the one eyed jacque crew where it would be interesting to give it ago once and see how it goes. I'm definitely a promoter of the "don't dis it till you try it' arts. There's some areas where I'm a hypocrite say for example smoking, drinking, amongst others. Those are mainly from seeing other family members trend down those paths and I wasn't quite pleased with the results that reflected on them. Pretty much an automatic 'no-no' in my book.

Guess its some food for thought for now which could also reflect back on the whole 'If I find 'x' then what next' which seems to be a problem for me at times. For the most part though in the last year I think I've solved it as there's a large pile of books I want to trend though and I don't mind spending a small chuck of my day reading through them...then again after 4 years of college I said I would be content working 40 years at one place and that's totally changed lol. Speaking of which reflecting on my old job that got rid of 2 more people...which makes their turn around about 1 person every 1-2 months...kind of sick imo. Equally though I hope I never have to go back there will see though the future is never promised.

Kind of drawing blanks now about 'going beyond the bubble' covered current group of friends and how they can't exactly satisfy my thirst for knowledge along with a single alternative. I'm sure there's more but I've picked my brain a good bit and will call it their :). Thanks for reading if you did if not thank you blog for accepting my thoughts to the internet.

Playin' Catch Up Part 2

In the last post I basically covered Thursday which was some what eventful as for yesterday it was cool work wise... and a little bit afterwards. Which told me that Saturday (today) was going to be fairly uneventful on the verge of 'I have to escape' to 'relaxzor day is relaxing'. Well without further a due off i blog again.

Friday:

Friday wasn't too bad as I woke a bit later than usually but was able to fly through my shower/initially wake up process which was great. Commute wise it wasn't bad either but the first note that indicated that Friday was going to be awesome was finally getting my contractor badge. For some odd non-magical reason they had never received my MAC number for my badge even though I had one for my badge... its a bit beyond me something tells me it got dropped between point A and point B. None the less had my badge and was able to make my way off to my cubical. Friday was also the first day that I could begin chip off some work on one of the forms which was assign to my queue. The form was basically a pretty up version of a form that already existed. So I spent most of the day working on that particular ticket and notifying one of my leads of the tickets that I'm currently encountering issues with. Supposedly one of them I'll need help from multiple people so that should be amusing. Around 4:30 is when I finished my work and pretty much basked in the glow of awesomeness of the done task.

I did pack my bags to be ready to hang out at a friends place if applicable but that was never the case. So I pretty much went home and debated on ordering out food for a good couple hours. Finally a guy I play HoN with was like 'You can't eat froze pizza'. He had a solid point so I went out and got some food. Equally got a call from another person I hadn't hung out with/talk to in a while and hopefully we can plan some hang out in the future.

Right now I'm kind of 50/50 on if I want to still take the reigns on plotting hang out sessions but part of me is starting to grow, I guess annoyed of doing it myself but equally when I leave it up to others (be it via a game or r/l) the amount of communication is a bit lacking. There's always a choice to go into a hermit state where then I would get a crap ton of my work done but feel its necessary yet. Then again it does take 21 days to break a habit so I may give it a go. Kind of try a 'disappear in to the abyss' scenario / let someone else manage it but that's not really my style. I'll keep my thoughts wondering on that one.

In either case got back had some pizza then played about 4 HoN matches before heading off to bed. It overall sounded like Friday was uneventful but in all honesty I wasn't expecting anything too crazy out of it. I mean going from awesome task done at work to something else awesome takes planning. I'll take my 2 points and call it there :).

I'll debate if I want to blog today as of yet. By waiting too long I may not get to it tonight but equally if I complete it now it'll keep me pacified for a bit. Plus I haven't had dinner which might be a good idea. I'll give it some thought but for now my post is done.

Playin' Catch Up Part 1

Its been a little while sensed I blogged so I figured now (on a Saturday evening) would be a good time to play catch up. Last entry was on Wednesday so pretty much have to play catch up to some extent. Without any further a due.

Thursday:

Thursday was kind of more of the same at least for work. Not a whole lot happen at work pretty much the same routine as per usually. I did start nodding on and off again but I'm not sure if that was due to lack of sleep or trying to read material I had a reasonable good thumb on. Was reading up on how to use SQL command in PowerBuilder. PowerBuild is a tool I'm not 100% familiar with so the portions in which how you could use SQL in powerbuilder was neat however the command mentioned are quite similar to regular SQL. Thus its a little bit of hit and miss in terms of learning some new material. We don't directly change the code but it doesn't hurt to have the knowledge to look at PB code and understand the logic behind it. On the same note though it was cool cause one of my teammates stopped by and praised me for reviewing it in advance. Also discovered to other neat things about this co-worker.

For starters he complimented me on my...how to say 'Asian/Japanese mannerism. Mainly in the sense of over politeness and so forth. Also he knew the term "Gaijin" which I thought was fantastic. I didn't really go on about how I liked anime and such but let him know that I did have an interest in the japanese culture. The rest of the day consisted of some knowledge transfer about how to do particular types of CarMax orders (i.e: Someone goes to buy a car, they have a car which they wish to sell to CarMax however this car has a lease on it. That sort of thing). After work was done I stopped by home to pick up some mail then headed over to a friend's place to try out a game called "Fury of Dracula".

Before we even started the game I knew we probably weren't going to finish it within a reasonable time for me to play the entire time. Mainly because I'm finally back on my sleep schedule and don't want to mess it up again. With the group of friends I spend a good bit of my board game time with I use to accumulate about 5-7 hours of sleep each night and get back home around midnightish. I realized that with this new position I have, waking up at 6:30 each morning, that crashing at 11-midnightish would kill me. So I will go ahead and say I had to cut it short which kind of collapsed the already collapsed group. I'll give a brief overview of my thoughts though.

For starters this is definitely one of those games with a fairly large rule set and probably a bit of over the top in terms of rules. One issue from the bat to the end was the constant reference to the rules. Have to admit for some games a good rule of thumb is to have it so you can play the game without referencing the rules right off the bat. Think that's a bit overzealous as some simple games I've played still require some references to the rules. Its definitely one of those niche games though that once you find a particular crowd of people that enjoy playing it, it can get adapted fairly quickly. Simple example one group of friends I don't play Lunch Money with due to the fact of memorizing 15-16 cards while another group doesn't mind this fact. Same can be said with Race to the Galaxy, Munchkin, certain versions of Fluxx, the list goes on. Set-up does take some time though but once its all configured your good to go.

The basic premise of the game is to catch dracula and kill. There's only one way to kill Dracula and that's basically in combat. Dracula is a PC who runs about the country and you have to find him (Carmen Sandigo anyone?). Dracula basically wins by accumulate 6 points via hunters not finding where his been, a day passes and Dracula lives, or Dracula kills a hunter. Based on previous plays with each person the game can be absurdly boring or constantly interacting. The session which I attend was a mixture of both. Myself and another individual definitely had an ok time with the game while two other individuals weren't so keen on it (one basically started trolling) and then went off to play another game while this game was going. Disrespectful imo I mean if you don't want to play just don't play... don't ignore half the game rotation come back and go 'ok so what are we doing now?'.

Trolling in this game is not particularly difficult to do. You pretty much just have to take the train and skip pass any locations dracula may have passed or keep missing the train (about a 33% chance of that occurring). I guess the other gief I have is the overdone combat system. It really could have been broken down into 2 elements initiative and damage however there's micro elements in which depending on the weapon used against another weapon can vary the result. So at least for the first round one would have to constant reference the cards to get a feel for them, however I think after a few plays it becomes intuitive to have some idea what actions/weapons do against what (i.e: knife, punch, escape, dodge, rifle, etc). Those I'd say were the two issues we encountered that and I suppose the RNG card element but there's not much you can do their. Length of the game was an issue for some even though I provide ample warning.

After Dracula concluded I went home read some 1984 and headed off to bed.

Off to blog about Friday now :).

A bit more productive day, closer to the weekend.

Well its about halfway through the weekend and things are finally starting to pick up. Though my sleep schedule is a bit bouncy but getting closer to the optimal schedule I wish to fulfill.

Woke up fairly early cause I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, not sure why but I was turning a bit and definitely couldn't put my mind in a unconscious enough state to get to sleep. None the less my system is fairly use to physically shutting down so no issues there so my body wasn't totally blown just my mind slightly. Got out of bed fairly quickly and was able to meet my 7:00 o'clock 'get shower and dress' time as per usually. Definitely glad I'm getting better at that. From their went downstairs checked e-mails, warmed-up cars and did the usually morning routine before work.

Work was a bit more productive today, I'm currently researching about 5 tickets and after 8 days of almost no productivity I finally have access to (I believe) all the applications I need to do my job. It twas a good day and I have a lot of follow-up to do relating to my tickets. Equally I found out a lot of the tickets their sending in are a bit more complex then originally anticipated...so will see where that goes. Not sure if I'm actually eager to go to my new job yet but I'm definitely more motivated seeing how I'm getting there early / on time each day...can't argue against that.

Though there was some disappoint news later on in the day. I found out two of my team members from my previous team actually got their 2 week pink slip which is kind of disappointing. Their was two reason I heard. One was that they need to save money so they had to let them go, the other was they lacked the skill set to continue being an asset to the team. Then again part of me saw this coming at least for one team member the other one...well after he transferred his knowledge about how to run the process he only knew how to run and everyone on the team knew it, no point in keeping him around.

While I have to admit part of me does feel kind of bad as I know how long it took me to find a job and the amount of searching required...though i do hope they find something better and that equally matches there skill set. Though TSYS (main application of TDM) is insanely niche based so not sure where there going to run with that. Equally they both don't have a lot of programing knowledge. I guess eagerness to learn plays a role but really just too much to elaborate on. I'll cut myself short there as I could go on for a bit.

None the less finished the work day on that slightly thought provoking note came home. Put cloths in the wash, manage the budget, blogging (doing that now), cleaned my room and played HoN. I'm actually glad I to be back on a schedule again...well almost back on schedule I'm about an hour off of where I wanna be but that can be tweaked easily. The only other adjustment is adding more productive task, blogging earlier, reading earlier and well doing a lot of stuff earlier. My main test will be tomorrow hanging out with friends.

Think that's all I have to rant on about for now. I might due just a free thought entry tomorrow but for now I'm off to bed. Nite!

Some actually progress today.

Today wasn't too bad and I was actually productive which was great. Equally found out that some of the work I have is going to be a good bit time consuming...which is a good thing to be honest.

Tried out something different last night by attending to all my morning stuff in the evening such as showering and ironing clothes so I don't have to worry about it in the morning. The eventually plan is when I go to work out I can take the shower and remove the junk...that hasn't happen today due to the magnitude of other things I still need to attend to. But ya that's yesterday not today.

For today I woke up got to work at the usually time and instead of working got more troubleshooting done on my PC. Meet this one fellow that tends to say 'shazam' a good bit and has a fairly in depth knowledge of the CarMax installation systems. Which I've noticed a pattern with CarMax that if someone doesn't know the answer someone may/may not know someone that does. So its basically a giant red rover / chain game of finding who has the answer. Did get one of the key components working on the machine so I could actually do research today and found out towards the end of the day that one of my tickets is pretty straight forward while the other one is a bit more complex and will probably require part of the team. Though I can easily come to the conclusion that sense no one person knows everything and everyone knows a little bit of something it takes forever to get an answer. Though I was glad to get one application working so its a step in the right direction. Sense I got home I've been updating my blog and mostly just relaxing.

That's about it for today might go play HoN in a bit or clean up around the house. Much stuff to do later all!

Another fresh start to the week

Overall today was alright, not the greatest of days but equally not the worst of days...though I feel like I wasted a lot of my day today. Though it wasn't really on purpose it was definitely not intended. Spent a good bit of time goofing off and not attending to task (like my blog, working out, washing cloths) that I should have been. Tomorrow I plan to have a different mindset and get things done properly. Without too much more complaining time to go over today. Don't plan to cover the weekend as part of it was eventually while the rest was kind of blah.

Got up at a reasonable hour today and made it to work 5 minutes early. I definitely did that much right. From there the rest of the work day was a bit more productive but on the same accord not so much. I'm still lacking accesses to actually do work so I had to use a co-workers computer to get the task done. I've listed to my manager the access I'm currently missing but all they do is give me names and tell me to pursue the answers myself. While this is great and all that there tasking me this responsibility, its really this kind of stuff that should have been taken care of prior to my on boarding. As a result I'm missing out on some hands on experience and ability to apply what I'm learning. However today I was able to get some hands but on another co-workers computer. As a result his probably fallen slightly behind and I've only gotten a bit of my work done. Equally there's 2 more tickets (total 4 now) that I have to attend to...bit silly.

Compared to prior work experience this is probably the worst on boarding process I've had as it pretty much seems like no one has any knowledge as to how to add new people to the system. Its probably due to the fact that they rarely higher outside the company but you think that if your a Fortune 100 company that these basic systems would be in place, guess not. Aside from that the rest of the work day was alright. The only other set back was not bring my MP4 player or a book to read in the down time...mostly the MP4 player portion as there was a solid hour where I was re-reading documentation. Oh and i forgot my work notes...That's about it work wise.

The drive home was fairly quick but slowed down a bit at one portion. Once I got home I played some HoN and lost several games in a row which at that point I just zoned out and watched TV, check news, procrastinated and etc. Ironically enough though I'm still on par for going to sleep and getting about 7 hours of sleep tonight. I'm going to project for 8-9 tomorrow and be a bit more productive. The other reason I don't think I'm getting as much done is I moved my computer over to the other room and it usually yields to a decline in productivity...at least it did during my vacation. I don't plan to move it tonight but I'll do it first thing tomorrow... tomorrow won't be lazy gonna get as much crap done as possible. Have a small I want to nail out and some goals to being work on. That's about it for now gonna swap out the cloths to the dryer and head off to bed.

Nite all.

Edit: Crazy Last 2 Weeks and Wonderful New Job

Its been a while and finally glad to be updating my blog at last. Gonna give a fairly brief post of what I've been up to the last 2 weeks along with how the first day of my work went...today was also neat but Monday was so much better.

So for starters I put in my 2 weeks notice about well...2 weeks ago and received a fairly quick response asking why I was quitting...was it money, work environment, co-workers... It would be a little bit of each column but unfortunately my main boss was a bit off point. The main reason I wished to leave was due to opportunities of growth...CMI didn't offer it and well that would just stunt my current and future growth for a good bit. He understood the limitation and I began my departure KT sessions...there's certain things that couldn't honestly be KTed... my knowledge of writing macros, detailed information of how MasterCard transactions work, multitude of TSYS screens...there was a good bit. None the less I think I did a fairly good job and based on the past 2 days with no phone calls... it seems the team is doing alright without me. The last day I must admit was filled with a lot of emotions running through my system which I wasn't able to completely filter out till Saturday after I left due to everyone's schedules and timings. None the less now looking at it and being thrown into a much larger pond where I'm a bit more appreciated for my ability to adapt quickly I'm quite happy...

Which brings me to my first day at CarMax...on my first day I got there fairly early and was meet by my bosses boss and given a brief overview (for probably the 3rd time) as to task I would be attending to. I confirmed with him my understanding and he soon introduced me to one of my bosses / team members... There's no actually 'bosses' but more so people with different levels of experience on each team in different roles. Its a bit odd but I actually prefer it that way. Another neat fact there's only about 1,000 people at the facility. In either case this began the first day of application and theory.

So after the daily 9 o'clock meeting I was taken into a room and taught on a high level what tables and data bases I would be modifying. He was a bit surprised how much I understood/absorbed on the first day and was able to ask him questions going 'beyond the basics'. I swear based on the amount of praise I received I would have loved a scratch behind the ear or a pat on the head...not from him of course but another individual that would be more favorable. After which we went through the "Order Entry" which is basically the process CarMax does to enter information when you purchase a vehicle then to lunch.

Think the only main benefit of the cafeteria is the infinite fries...unfortunately there cold so I don't plan to exercise it much...I'll most likely just eat lunch at my desk and listen to my MP4 player...not much time for that now a days lol. After lunch there was more KTing relating to Order Entry and at about 3ish I was left to do what I wanted and spent the rest of the time studying...overall a great day.

The rest of the evening was pretty basic though I haven't had much sleep recently (as usually) due to adjusting to the new schedule. Honestly I should be sleeping right now but I wanted to make sure to take care of my blog. Anywho my plans for Wednesday got canceled so I'm going to use that day to either catch up on sleep or do something utterly random to screw up my sleep schedule further. Anywho I'm off to bed nite.

P.S: I miss blogging