A not so early day tomorrow.

"Your not allowed to work over 40 hours a week"

Basically what my boss told me today which I'm sure I've noted in the blog before but the thought of someone putting a cap on how much I can work makes me smile. The week thus far has been pretty good minus the whole moving cars back and forth from the shop but aside from that can't complain. This weekend is looking like another good one up ahead.

Friday the usually board game session and possibly D&D session right afterwards but that's kind of an unknown at this point. If I decided to stay then I can pick up a bit more on D&D 4.0 but if I choose to go home then there's a couple of options avaliable like gaming, reading, listening to music and relaxing....Friday evening one of the few evenings I thought I could listen to classic on NPR, I've been wrong though...not sure for how long. Supposedly they started playing classical after 10 o'clock so I've been making good use of that.

Saturday is looking good too but not exactly sure how I'm going to approach it yet... I should have a plan once Friday night is done. Anywho about an hour past when I normally go to bed but I do get to go in 30 minutes late tomorrow. Good times...off to bed now nights all!

Weekends are being to stablize

To be honest the title right there actually makes me happy. Weekends, for a brief period of time, use to be the period of time in which I would typically try to plan something random like hang out with friends, video game benge session, get out and about that sort of thing. However as of recently that hasn't really been the case. Normally I dislike weekends being some sort of planned activity but the events which I've kept constant so far I can totally approve of. Fridays have been mostly for board games, Saturdays has been a mixture of Honcast -> Videos Games/Marathon -> Sleep with Sundays being a day of rest. Which I'm totally cool with how that turned out...basically all I had to say and figured I shared. Went to my first D&D 4th Edition session as well but not much to say there...can't judge it till I go to more but he first session was ok. Not great or terrible just ok. We shall see sleep for me laters!

Another early day tomorrow

Today essentially began the next 5 weeks of having to be up at around 5-6 am each morning but its not one I'm not too bitter about. If anything I'm thankful for it cause now I am forced to go to bed earlier than I usually do which leads me to be on an actually normal sleep schedule. Funny how it works out like that. In either case my 2 releases went well today and can't complain. At least better than my first release which resulted in duplicating a fields I didn't know I had generated due to copying a script incorrectly. However this time, to the best of my knowledge, all is well so can't complain too much plus able to finally figure out an issue with one of the forms I was working on. My job with each day seems to resemble something like a Russian Doll Rubics Cube. It seems that by the time I actually solve whatever issue is occurring at the time the cube opens up and another issue comes out of it. However unlike Russian Dolls the next problem/issue is not proposal smaller than the previous one. Though progress is progress I suppose.

Not much happen Monday so not too concerned on covering that. Had a good time just laying in bed and rambling myself to sleep...been a while sense I've done that. That was the only notable event aside from driving back and forth from car places and having my car looked at and as such going slightly over my budget for the month...over in the sense of 'oh god I'm not saving as much as I would like to' win some lose some. Monday started my 'fast' from internet activity for the most part as I mainly checking social mediums in the morning or later on in the evening...been kind of nice and resulted in attending to other activities.

As for the rest of this week I plan to help my dad with more car related stuff and from there I might stop by Richmond Comics for D&D night...its tempting I must admit though I'm afraid I might have to leave mid encounter but not sure as of yet...its a hovering thought if anything. Friday Board Games of course with Thursday being free at the moment and Saturday most likely a game benge session.

About 5 minutes over schedule so going to head over to listen to euro dance, hobbit or sleep...anywho nights!

List of Stuff to do list

Going to go ahead and my list of things I need to start/make progress on for May so here we go:

Book:

A+ Certification Book (second time reading through it)
48 Laws of Power
Master Switch

Games:

Recettear
Mother 3
Aquaria

Weekend Activities:

Weekly Board Game Sessions (twice a week if possible).
Running/workout
Draft up ideas.

Anime:

Kaiji Ultimate Survivor Season 2
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
X-Men
Ao No Exorcist

Shows:

New DW Season 2


That's about I think...off to bed for now later!

Should feel happy but actually kind of bummed.

In the last 3 days there's a lot of awesome things have occurred but after tonight I'm feeling...a bit bummed to be honest. Not sure why or how to express it I mean usually gloom thoughts yield to better nights of sleep for myself but I wish not to contemplate too much over it. To sum up though Thursday I went to a friends place to play a round of Pandemic which considering the difficulty I'm surprised we won (about a turn away from losing completely). Friday I hung out with a friend for a bit and from there went to Richmond Comics meet 2 new people and we played Frag along with 7 Wonders.

Frag is a game developed by Steve Jackson, same individual who did Munchkin, so you can already expect good things from it as a result. We played a single round and I won which I was quite pleased in my skill in predicting re spawn dice rolls and gibbing the person over and over again. Basically did the reverse of a legitimate strategy. After that we played two rounds of 7 Wonders in which I didn't win either of those but a fun game none the less. Its basically a civilization building game that focuses on building up resources, constructing armies, gathering resources, researching and so forth through a drafting system. Overall it was pretty good.

As for today I watched some HoNcast which one match was particularly good, watched the next episode of X-Men the anime...which I might drop its alright but nothing fantastic. Well correction it was quite good but now its not really catching my interest. Though on the same accord though it comes out on the weekend and I tend to watch it while eating dinner so I might dunno yet. After that Sat down for a few hours and played my way through Portal 2.

Which finally leads to my point as to why I'm bummed. Reason 1 I found out earlier today some friends were out hanging out for about 7 hours and didn't invite me along to join them... so ya I'm kind like....?????. Same group I played the board games with earlier this week. It could possible be due to the fact that I don't particularly like playing one game with them but I'm not going to make any assumptions. Just partly elude that 2 weeks ago the thought of one of them going 'oh ya we definitely need to do this again' is mentioned for a Saturday event, then epic board game followed by no heads up. Not going to fuss over unsaid words but gotta vent by some medium which blogging and talking to myself is nice for that.

As for possible solutions already worked on one this evening which was already in the works which was finishing Portal 2 single player. Earlier this weekend a friend and myself trucked through multi in a couple hours and felt it fit to finish off single. While I must admit that the ending for single was about on par with multi-player I felt a bit disappointed that after 12 hours the game was complete...

The comedy I'll of course reflect back on but all and all the only thing left to do is get achievements and perhaps beat the game again for amusement or speed sake. It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth looking back at my purchase though. I look at the menu and there's two options still Single and Multiplayer (for the most part). There's no challenge maps, no import map option, no SDK...so ya stuck in the water. Have to admit bit disappointed almost like purchasing a ActivisionBlizzard title. Knowing valve though I'm sure they'll come out with this stuff later but still feel a bit cheated... Though if they bring as much free content as they did with TF2 I can't complain.

Thoughts are kind of roaming at the moment. I might read for a bit to take my mind of things or contemplate till my skull collapses on itself. Tomorrow won't be much better due to possible multiple family related activities that I may have to attend who knows. Gonna head off to bed for the time being. Night all!

Life Dub-Step Mix

I was reminded as to how much I dislike dub step music as I listen to a dub step version of Badger. Figured it was worth mentioning and getting out the way. The last few days or so has just been one crazy trip with constant activities going on left and right. I'm surprised I even blogged on that last Saturday night. Something tells me that either I was killing time or just finished watching a bunch of stuff and took a break to catch up. I'm just going to do an overview of Monday-Wednesday as I need to be off to bed in about 5-10 minutes.

Monday wasn't too shabby not a great deal of sleep though due to waiting on the release of Portal 2. Basically I took a 2 hour nap and had friend call me when the game came out. Once the game was released we played Co-Op for 2 hours and was able to get another 3 hours of sleep. I am starting to notice that it is effecting my ability to work so I already dedicated Wednesday to catching up on sleep....primarily the reason I'm lying to rest early. As for post work stuff prior to the Portal 2 release just relaxed for the most part knowing my impending doom.

Tuesday was a bit dragged out due to the good bit of tiredness but definitely had something to look forward to. Hadn't hung out with a friend in a while so after work drove about 30 minutes.... in some direction and went to hang out. Definitely got immersed in a lot of Korean culture from a TV standpoint which went well. That along with playing some Magic which I hadn't done in ages along with Zombie Dice. There was one show that was coming on right as I had to leave (sci-fi I think) but no time to stick around for it. The drive home was nice listen to XL102 which is odd but it kept me awake and kicking...end up crashing at 2 am that night..my own darn fault.

Today wasn't work keeping me 'busy' would be an understatement as there's a great deal number of things to do. Hopefully I won't go crazy but will see. Becoming a whore to time management. After work stopped by the grocery store to get some basic consumables such as yogurt, bananas, and amp for the end of the month.

I believe that's another reason my sleep schedule had been whack the past 2 weeks was due to have 4 AMPs over 2 weekends. This is what I would like to blame but at Magfest I tend to have 6 over 5 days...then again those 5 days require a lot of 'energy' (lol) so it makes sense why i would be so drained. None the less just a theory.

No pizzas on sale which was a bummer...got back home relaxed for a bit then finished Portal 2 co-op. Just have single left which I'm thinking I have about another 3-4 hours left of gameplay...I hope otherwise that's probably the worst time/ money ratio I've spent on a game aside from Sega Nights on the Wii (15 bucks for 3 hours of gameplay?...minus getting all A ranks which would drive me insane....especially twinkle twinkle little star...) but for the comical value its been well worth it though...well I won't say spoilers.

So with Portal 2 co-op done I'm off to rest Nite all!.

Here I go again with the delays /sigh

These past few days have been incredible busy and as such I've definitely fallen behind on my daily/bi-daily blog entries. Hopefully I'll have some time this evening to actually post some content and get my thoughts out there as I could use a thought dump. Though if I wanted to write a tl;dr version it would be something along the lines of 'good bit of gaming, very little sleep, and many a hang out session'...yup that would be it in a nutshell. Anywho work soon laters!

Tonberry BGR : ThunderStone Review

A small intro here. So last week I started going to the local game shop to partake in some board game related activities. There's a post I finished that said I would do a review of each of the games I played. Unfortunately I'm extremely late on that but no worries cause here it is the first of many. ThunderStone Review.

What is ThunderStone?

Thunderstone is a deck building card game that exercises many of the mechanics similar to other deck building games such as Dominion or Ascension. While I can't speak on the note of Ascension in great detail there can definitely be some notable difference between ThunderStone and Dominion. Though we shall not get to that point yet but in a nutshell as started earlier its a deck building game where its the players goal to collect items, heroes and venture into the dungeon to defeat enemies. Once an enemy is defeated you gain experience and victory points based on the creature defeated. After sometime the thunderstone will appear in the enemys cave and the player to claim it gets 3 points and ends the game.

Components?

The game comes with an instruction manual that's about 20 some pages long, and the cards in not so convenient dividers. When I mean not so convenient I mean mean no-existent with the main purpose that it leaves plenty of room for expansions and there's no fixed space. Blessing and a curse I suppose but that's about it. The instructions do a fairly effective job of explaining the game without leaving too many areas for guessing.

How does the game play?

Your initially deck/resource that you receive consist of a variety of cards such as Torches, Daggers, Militia, and other cards. Each of these cards has a set ability or cost for example Torches provide +1 light and can be used as 2 coins and Militias have +1 attack and have no coin value. On your first turn you draw 6 cards and then choose to go to the village or the caves. The village offers the ability to purchase a new item or hero to use in combat, upgrade a hero you have in your hand or rest to remove one card in your hand which in some cases are diseases. Caves provide an avenue of gaining experience and also obtain trophies which can be used as ability cards for future combat. There's also different levels of the caves/dungeons in which the players use light to even out there power against the monsters that are further in the cave. Everything at the beginning from items and heroes you can buy to types of monsters you fight are randomized. At the end of each turn you discard your hand and draw a new hard of 6 cards. This cycle repeats itself till the dung is exhausted down to the Thunderstone in which once claimed the game is over.

Similarities to other games:

There are strong similarities to other games which one comes to mind is Dominion however there are striking key difference between the two:

Players battle the caves, not the other players - While in each game the key goal is to stream line your deck so you can obtain the maximum points possible in dominion you must also keep in mind a secret priority to screw over your opponent whenever you can. Even in some cases based on the starting cards the deck you build can be based on keeping your opponent down while you win with a very minimal lead. This tends to create a lot of hit and miss reactions for some Dominion players. Some definitely enjoy the fact of building your deck as effective as you can but feel hampered when there opponent tries to wreck there strategy. This concept doesn't exist in Thunderstone as everyone is focusing on killing as many monsters as possible from the cave. For a lawl comparison think of it as the difference between a RP and non-RP server in mmos. On the RP server users are usually friendlier as the community is much smaller while on non-RPs it tends to be whoever can tag the mob first wins/gets to keep it.

Aside from this I can't think of any other similar games.

Cons?:

Some of these are rather straight forward. With most of these deck building games the player who goes first typically has an advantage as priority over choices can pay off in the long run for resources that are strongly wanted. This tends to play a large role once monsters are slayed. Another gief I have is the lack of player interaction amongst players. While this is also what make the game gold you really don't even need to communicate with your friends and for the most part play out your turn then wait for it to come up again. There's also some cases where enemies in the cave/dungeon where they all have negative effects and no one wants to engage them which creates a miniature stalling effect. In most cases though it still advantages to fight it even if you get a disease or two against it as the reward paces of the plague.

Pros?:

Its another deck building game alternative. The one thing that I must admit that turns me off dominion is re-randomizing if the set-up seems too 'aggressive' for new players or people who don't enjoy that element. Sense that element does not exist in this game less re-randoming is needed. It also brings the unique element of leveling up your hero and choosing between the equipment in which how you wish to build them, so there's a bit of a meta element of not only making your deck work but also making your deck work with your heroes as well.

Recommendations:

I would recommend this game if:

Your looking for an alternative to Dominion.
Enjoy playing games with friends in which you pat each other on the back instead of backstabbing.
Find the aspects of building something from scratch into something effective a neat concept.

Specifications:
Average Cost: $35-$40
Time to play: 15-45 minutes.

Final Thoughts:

As I already own Dominion myself I can't really see myself picking this up any time in the future. Equally along with the fact that there are several other board games that have my interest at the moment which are currently on the back burner. If your contemplating between this and Thunderstone be sure to consult the group of people you play with first and understand what style of game there looking for from there. While I must say I do enjoy Fury of Dracula, Lunch Money and just recently Middle Earth: Quest knowing friends that don't enjoy a crap ton of meta rules stop me from ever wanting to play it.

That's it for this review next up Magical Athlete.

No updates sense Tuesday

I must admit with the twenty-x some hours I've been getting these last 2 weeks, the board games sessions at richmond comics, cleaning the house, updating the budget, and business at work along with gosh knows what else its been quite a busy. Though I've finally had sometimes to sit down and update my blog. I plan to do a couple entries tonight one not too much longer than the other so that I don't burn myself out by updates. This one's just going to cover Thursday up to now as not much happen on Wednesday but sense Wednesday there's been bowling, board games, and several other activities to boot. So lets start with Thursday.

Thursday:

Work wise Thursday was some what productive but never leaps and bounds per se. I'm getting painfully close to closing some of my ticket but the moment I start making progress I tend to hit some kind of bump and unable to meet my original expectations. My team lead was shock for a sec when I said there was no deliverable for this week as I defined deliverable as a product/service that I completed (like putting something to production) but supposedly its anything I've made progress on so when I told him about all the work I had been doing thus far he was a bit more relieved. Ambiguity can definitely be the enemy at times. Rest of the work day was straight forward.

Once I got off work I stopped by a friends place to lead them a few of my anime DVDs and carry on conversations for a bit. Part of me wishes I could stay longer but there were other events that evening that needed to be attend to such as hanging out with a friend and bowling later on. So from there I departed and went back to Midlo to meet a friend of mine in which we hung out and chatted about a single game for several hours (Heroes of Newerth) which was also complimented by dinner. Before we knew it it was time to split and head out and bowl. Overall I didn't do to bad best game was a 144 so can't complain. Understanding the game a lot better each time I go..which is like once a month.

From there went home listen to NPR and fell asleep to be woken up shortly after for work.

Friday:

Upon waking up I already knew it was going to be an awesome day. Work wise I helped discover something a previous co-worker didn't get 100% working and as such the form I was working on wasn't doing what it was suppose to do. Not to mention there hasn't been any forms printed in that format, like ever. So stuck there and tried to work on another task but after 18 failed reprints I gave up. Not a great but not a bad day, though the time after wards where I stopped at a friends place to chill was pretty good. He went on about Dragon Age 2 which I don't mind as I've been a listener sense...forever. Though the time came where I needed to depart to Richmond Comixs to play board games. I actually got their earlier like last time but no one seemed to be there for board games. As such I decided to play Choronaughts by myself...kind of like a game of solitaire. Its not too bad but if you pay enough attention you can almost win ever single time...there's only a few exception / id combination which can prevent victory.

A little bit after 8 people started showing up and games ensued. It started off with Chornonaughts which went well and equally met a new person that was pretty good and quick to pick rules as I found out later on that night. After that match they went to the back to find a board game. Initially I told them that I would play anything... I was not expecting them to come back with a game made by Fantasy Flight Games (same people who did Fury of Dracula) called Middle Earth Quest.

Just from looking at the board and the number of complex cards that this game was going to take a bit to learn. After about 2-3 hours of reading rules we finally broke into it. This is another reason I enjoy going there is that really no game is too complicated or overly done. They actually had the patience to sit down and learn it in which in the past with any other group I play with, they would never want to do that...if anything they would look at it and run away. I applaud the people that go there...so good and so much fun. At first I didn't care who I played as but after a bit I felt the urge to be Sauron sense i had the most 'dracula' experience though I never played a Dracula I sorta knew how to play it.

I must admit there were some parts where I played terrible and other parts where i did well. Though by the end (and hoping I did the rules right) it turned out 'good' at least for me cause I won. We also did the 'final battle' scenario where I barely won. Definitely wouldn't mind playing more in the future. When we finished that played some card games with some of the drunk MTG players (ya they drink now kind of depressing...seeing how there's a sport bar next door) and then Dominion to a trip back home. My gas light was messing with me again so I filled it up real quick then got a full tank at a cheaper spot...oh and a cookie too.

Once I got back home watched some HoN cast then fell asleep shortly after.

Saturday thus far...:

Today's been pretty good not exactly what I expected for a Saturday but can't complain. The Honcast matched I thought was coming on tonight is coming on tomorrow so ya...goofed up there. Realized some of the potato challenges are insane so gave up on those (many I can't do cause I don't own the game). The only gaming thus far has been a small bit of Minecraft and HoN. Did some reading on Middle Earth...contemplating on buying it but not sure as of yet. If I can play it at Richmond Comixs once every Friday why not ya know.

For the rest of this evening might finish off my pizza then play some Recttear thinking about starting a fresh file as I don't feel like dealing with the fail I'm about to encounter (ordering item system killed me). Either that or Mother 3...still in the air or work on more portal related fun stuff...will see.

That's about it for now I'll do one more post I promised I do about a week ago...see ya soon..again I think.

Good start to the week

Already based on how far behind I am on my post its already looking like I'll be about a day behind or so on every single one of my post this week...unless for some reason I'm able to churn out two entries tonight which I doubt. Then again the past 2 days haven't been too terrible eventful so will see how it goes.

Monday:

For the start of the week I've pretty much already dubbed Monday as 'rucky' day as everything I did just happen to fall into my favor...well one exception but none the less it went well. For starters I found $20 bucks in one of my back pockets which seemed completely random but I went with it anyways. The work day as a whole went well too as one of my team leads gave me a couple of suggestion how to create a steamline method for the form (which I found out later while it does work is probably not the best method) and starting to pose questions to one of my co-workers that he is beginning to have difficulty answering. Made me quite please I must say. The single set back for work was that I ate some expired yogurt for lunch...but even that wasn't really a set back as I had never gotten sick off yogurt before...definitely different than normal illnesses I'm use to.

Once I got home (from shopping and such) cooked myself up a pizza for dinner watched HoNcast and faded in and out of conciousness. Eventually got on to play some Killing Floor with a friend but only for a round or so after which went off to bed. That was Monday...not going to do Tuesday today..that's for another day. Anywho later!

Hope this streak of good weekends continues.

In the previous post I went on about how Friday was for the most part. Equally after briefly skimming it I definitely didn't cover Saturday and Sunday. With that said this entry will focus on those 2 days. If time allows I will do my very best to blog today as well sense it felt like 'rucky' day and essentially pretty much was. Though this post is not about today but rather about the ongoings of the remaining two days.

Saturday:

Sense Thursday I believe I was unsure about how the events of Friday and Sunday would unfold. However Saturday I pretty much had down to an hourly portion as to what events would ensue. The day started off with a Honcast about 45 minutes behind schedule which on my own schedule said 'hey this is enough time to take a shower, get dressed, and organize a bit'. Honcast kept me entertained for a bit however I knew it wouldn't carry on as with all good things they must come to an end...at least till next time. So thus a period of free time was created. With said free time I hoped on to minecraft.

This was my first time on minecraft in quite sometime. To be honest I haven't had much time at all to jump on minecraft and do much of anything. As a lot of my projects require a good bit of time to finish and can't be done in small chuck...well I take that back some parts of it could be done in small chucks though I much rather complete the task in 1 if not 2 sessions. So for the next couple hours I sat down and worked on my green house and dug a bit into dungeons...until I got lost...which was my stopping point.

Around this time it was about 6-7 o'clock and realized food would be needed to continue my existence. So went out and stopped by my favorite Italian Restaurant to grab a pizza and while consuming it ended up watching something...as to what it wasn't not 100% sure. In either case this lead up to my 5.1 hour Recttearathon.

Recttear one might ask "What is it?" well if I haven't mentioned it before think of dungeon crawler style of chocobo dungeon and item concepts of animal crossing except with a being more evil then tom nook. Initially I wasn't very far in played about a good week in game which totaled to about 5 hours of game play. I figured with another 5 hours I would get through another week right? I was mistaken as I found myself drastically behind of schedule and an extra week further along then I had originally anticipated. Though after 5 hours and reaching this someone disappointing point I decided to stop and step away for a bit to contemplate.

This lead me to play VVVVVV for a brief period of time...which seemed like a really odd idea. You think that after something as down turning as that the thought of a Masocore would be silly. However the one thing I enjoy about V6 than other masocores is the fact that it has really fantastic music that encourages you to continue playing the level till you rip off your nut sack. I'm not sure if it was due to my own self preservation or criticism but in 25 minutes I was a good way through the game and saved 3 out of the 6 crew, so I was doing surprisingly well. Not only that but the amount of deaths I had for some parts of it was surprisingly low. I won't ask questions haha.

At this point it was about 1-2 am and a friend of mine that's heading on a trip wanted to get some Killing Floor in. His fairly new to the game so I was able to show him some basic robes / tricks / practice definitely good times. At least I would think they were good times for lasting till 7 in the morning which at that point we were both tired and called it a night.




Sunday:

Didn't get a large amount of sleep Saturday into Sunday but Sunday in itself was suppose to be a chill day. Spent most of it playing minecraft, reading instruction manuals to board games and chatting with friends. Especially the last one as I'm finding that while I don't have a lot of time during the week to play games I've have allocated more time to chatting and reading. That essentially was Sunday kind of a winding down of the previous days awesome. After ranting about Saturday the rest of Sunday I'm kind of drawing a blank on it. If I recall it later I'll go on about it. For now I think that's enough going to game then sleep. Nights!

Starting the weekend on the right note

As of recently I've made it my goal to start making my weekends a bit more entertaining then they had in the past. For the most part after a work intensive week I would actually want to keep working with no downtime between it. That's how my work schedule use to be take the work home and work/keep an eye on the e-mail while at home on the weekend. Though sense going to back to 40 hour contracting that's no longer an applicable option. With that said the first move was to play something I truly wanted to play and not due to the fact that it was on my gaming 'to do list'. This list initially consisted of titles like Aquaria, Dead Space, Nation Red achievements basically games/things I wanted to get done but didn't have strong urge to.

To break that mold I decided to touch a game I knew would consume me horrible at great cost but I bite the bullet anyway. So I sat down and started playing Recttear. About 4 hours later at 5 in the morning I realized that sleep might be the best choice even though I wanted to keep playing. Reflecting back on that Friday it posed...a challenge, how could I better...no equally that greatness. After some research found out the local game shop (ironically the one I use to play Magic the gathering at) which has board game nights...totally worth it...but first my day.

@Work

It could possibly be that I'm the only individual that falls into this bucket but I don't believe saying 'Its Friday' is a good excuse to have when you don't feel like doing work. Personally I think its fine to say 'Its Friday afternoon' which at that point the mind (in most cases) can't help but resist the lure of the weekend and make silly statements that might not be 100% accurate. In either case work kind of died off at 3:00 o'clock and heck even one of my higher ups was like 'ya after the communication meetings on Friday just head home'... I stuck around for about 5-10 minutes but after that I followed his advice. Just don't like the idea of not doing much on Fridays work wise doesn't settle well with me.

@Killing Time

In either case after work I stopped by Five Guys and got a bag of Fries and consumed it happily while listening to Lord of the Rings audiobook. After that I drove around for a bit looked at some of the neighborhoods of childhood which was nice and stopped by Food Lion to get some consumables. Though after about 2 hours of this I ran out of ideas and left to Richmond Comixs early for board games.

@Richmond Comics

So I arrived at Richmond Comixs around 7 o'clock for some board games or perhaps listening to my audiobook as I was not anticipating many people to arrive as of yet. Though right as I walked in there was a group of 4-5 people already setting up for a game of Thunderstone which I heard mixed opinions about on boardgamegeeks. As such I sat down for a game and it went alright. While I only won by one point it was some what apparent that some of my Dominion experience did play a roll in terms of choices for deck building. For each game I go over not going to go too deep in depth as to how it plays. Going to write a separate review for each game.

At first I wasn't 100% comfortable around the group as at times my randomness can be hit or miss, with these people it was miss at first but it definitely picked up. Only compliant I have is the one kid explaining the rules moved at about the pace of an old friend of mine and was slightly board out my skull during explanation. Then again anything after Fury of Dracula is pretty straight forward.

After Thunderstone, Magical Athlete was played which is basically a racing/drafting game which was quite enjoyable. Game was designed to be broken game play yet enjoyable can't complain Betrayal at House on the Hill plays like a Zombie / Fury of Dracula. Zombie tile house building system and Fury of Dracula when its everyone vs. a player...with 30 possible scenarios. Which I must admit is awesome though I could find it a worry if for some reason everyone knows all the scenarios which could be an issue. But still even some games that have basically strategies can play quite well.

Towards the end I was invited to a tabletop session on Sunday though I probably won't be able to make it. The last bit of the evening I spent listening to NPR and chatting online for a bit good times.

As for today....food gaming marathon and HoNcast yup quite simple and off to watch stuff now. Later all!

2 awesome weekends in a row...how o_O

At least from my own past weekends this month the flow has usually been one really good weekend and then the following one being some what mediocre at best. Though last weekends combination of benge gaming, sports/e-sports watching and relaxing worked out really well. It appears that this weekend will possibly have more of the same elements. This is what I believe may happen...dunno yet as much is still in the air.

Friday:

*Dinner
*Directly after work heading to the library to read unless other plans suggest otherwise.
*Later that evening off to a board game group I found on boardgamegeek.
*Varying on what time that ends (I would imagine midnight or 1ish) heading back home to either play games or read a bit more, might sleep early.

Saturday:

*Possibly hangout session with some friends but if that's a no go Recctearathon (Capitalism, Ho!)
*...Ya that's it keeping it simple lol.
*I kid probably some HoNcast too if there's a match playing that weekend...now that's it

Sunday:

*HonCast
*Reading.
*Freebie

Keeping it fairly simple and not overly complicated...of course subject to change as anything is in life. I would plan for another weekend ahead but don't want to overdue it. Any who time for work later!

Portal 2, 04-19-2011. Steam 2 packs anyone?

This post is basically a shameless sell out to Valve. In either case I'm basically trying to find out the number of people that are interested in picking up Portal 2 on release day via Steam through pre-order. The normal price of the game is $50, pre-ordered is $45 and pre-order with a friend is $40.

So the basic goal is simple. If you have steam and looking for someone to pre-order with just let me know and I can pair up people accordingly. Of course its possible for people to pair themselves up (if it was a 4 pack this was be a great deal more helpful) but providing the service/assistance if I can.

I was planning to hold out on it myself but similar to Orange Box it simply can't be ignored. Except the box is 100% win unlike the 67% win of Orange Box (</3 Half-Life 2, yup went there). That's all I need to say for the moment. Cheers!

7 days, 31 hours of sleep, something broke, so happy

For those that are curious that's an average of 4.42857 hours of sleep each night. Though you may ask why am I so 'so happy' about it. I'm not sure why to be honest I think that somewhere between Friday and Sunday something went jar and while I can feel how incredible dry my eyes are or the idea of lying down and resting sounds ideal I would much rather go outside, play games or attend to some other activity. Even certain events over this past week have made me go 'rawr' are more of a whatever at this point. Though this could be denial but I'm not bothered by it one bit. Me thinks its now the 'd' word though as usually I catch such things and clearly call myself out on it, if it happens to be the case. Then again reflecting on this weekend...several hours of gaming (one particular game), much vegeating on the couch watching 'stuff' and concluding with a late night chill/hangout session with a friend from long past...that on top of the little sleep I have (got about 13 hours of sleep this weekend) it all...doesn't add up but yet it does.

Can't take the smile off my face either I feel like I'm back in college again and if anything else finally comfortable. There's a possibility I'll be staying at my dad's place after all which would have bummed me a few days ago is keeping me all sorts of happy. The idea of spending more time by myself sounds fantastic and to top it off it reminds me a lot of that year I played RO for about 20 hours a day (which to be honest probably one of my favorite segments of life right there). The nice weather definitely is upping the mood too might go for a walk or just sit on the porch and read a book. So happy right and hope this euphoria continues.

Any who don't want to wait till its too late to eat and...stuff doing so ya I'm gone hehehehehehe :D.

We learn from our mistakes, and then keep going

Tomorrow is going to hurt...I'm well aware of that but you think that after waking up from 5-6 hours of sleep over the past week I would have learned. Based on the hour in which I'm typing this I obviously have not and seems the pattern will continue for an unforeseen amount of time. Do I enjoy the fact of staying up late? I would be lying if I said I didn't, its definitely something that's a rarity now. One could defined it as a forbidden fruit or placing too many 'fireballs' (a type of hot candy) into ones mouth. The initially taste is all sorts of awesome but after a while it grows dull and tired some to the taste buds or some silly initially retribution rears its ugly head to remind you that its a bad idea.

Though I feel that without this aspect life becomes rather dull, moderation I think is the key here. A fat kid may love cake but even a fat kid will feel sick after the first couple of helpings, it can be helped. But can the fat kid be happy through this moderation? I'm sure that it would grow old after a while or eventually the fat kid will grow up and realize that what use to be fun may no longer be as fun as it was. Old habits die hard.

There is always also that fact of knowing that once the mind is unconscious that it won't permanent stay in the state. Especially mine which seems to enjoy no more than 7 hours at a time. Perhaps this is the month to fix it, break the old habit and adjust my body to such conditions. I've re-found one element of my life that I missed greatly. Japanese imports and JRPGs. This I believe will be a key element in balancing the sleeping element which we shall soon see.

For the time being I believe this is a enough for the day. I require rest and plan to obtain a great deal of it tomorrow. I would put 'hope' into this but I don't plan to hope but more so do.

Night all!

Awesome start to the weekend

Have to admit that yesterday probably fit the criteria of one of those 'awesome' / 'excellent' Friday's. There of course was some aspects that I wish could have been thrown in the mix but can't complain none the less. First one that comes to mind would be more board games but the amount of video gaming more than made up for it. Equally I haven't done a post that goes over a day in detail for a while so I believe this is more than overdue. I might do a game review later on this weekend but knowing me it most likely will be sometime next week. In either case I shall begin.

The morning was more of the same for a typically work week. At this point in the week I had gathered about 20 hours of sleep. Haven't had a lot this week thus far which has been a bit of a bummer as I could use a bit more unconscious time. None the less after 3 prior days of about 5 hours of sleep I was getting use to. Got work a little later than I wanted to but stayed busy the whole day. there was one ticket I was hoping to finish but the complexity of the work was greater than anticipated so I'll need another week to work at it. I did work till about 5:30 as I had a dental appointment the previous day that went pretty well. Supposedly I don't know how to floss properly which I'll need to work on.

After getting back from work I relaxed for a bit before trying to figure my course of action for the evening. As per a wonderful recommendation of a friend I downloaded a 1.5 hour long HoNcast/vent cast which I thought would be loads of ricing but it turned out to be pretty action packed. That long with a pizza dinner and 2 monsters was quite a wonderful dinner activity.

From there I procrastinated for a bit and then decided to finally start a file on Recttear. For those that aren't familiar with the title it was released in September 2010 that plays like a hybrid of Chocobo Dungeon/Diablo and Animal Crossing. The player is responsible for running an item shop and paying off a debt to a fairy who works with a finance corporation. To pay off this debt the player pays adventures to go into dungeons, find items, and then sell them in an item shop which they run. I played this for about 4 hours yesterday when I started to notice that the 2 monsters I had weren't having a great effect. To be honest I think the Diet Pepsi Max had a bit more bite to it...could be due to the little extra sugar no idea. Then again caffeine has the sort of a effect I guess some people have with alcohol it tends to enhance my mood then make me hyper at times. None the less the extra bit of energy did wake me up a bit and had me playing for about 4 hours.

It was around 5-6 o'clock at this point where I was thinking about sleeping but found a really nice Mother historical video which I highly recommend watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvyb_oNybOI

That essentially was my day... into the next day too lol. Didn't get much sleep as I was still fairly awake but its enough to carry me into today. Speaking of today I'll be watching some HoNcast (which I'm doing now) and debating between Minecraft, Recttear, or Mother 3. Will see how I feel its looking like another wonderful day ahead.

Enough blogging for the time being. Have a good day all!