Saturday, November 14, 2009
-Wuzzup LiveJournal! Anyone still really using this, I have not had a comment on here in ages. I am keeping busy nticipating the crazy holiday rush, and am still awaiting word on the many resumes I have sent out throughout the year. Curse you horrible United States economy, why did I have to graduate this year!!
-As promised in my last blog, here are some of the details from my vacation to South Carolina and Georgia. It started off disastrous. While at our local airport waiting for my flight, a student pilot literally forgot to put down their landing gear and belly-slided across the runway. No one was hurt, but it led to about 3 and a half hours of flight delays which resulted in missing my connecting flight and staying overnight in Indianapolis. Only my third time flying and that was the second time I had to stay overnight due to delayed flights! Always book an extra day to your vacation so you can be prepared for this people! :)
I touched down in Atlanta the next morning which is where InDis host, Chris picked me up. Got to meet a lot of new and familiar faces from VGevo at InDisFest. First day activities included catching lunch at Big Pie in the Sky, which I suggested after catching the joint being spotlighted on the Atlanta episode of Man vs. Food. About a dozen of us were there and we all teamed up to devour the gigantic Carnivore pizza. A pie loaded with many types of meat, and quite delicious to boot! At night we met up at a pub called the North River Tavern where InDis was able to set up a few televisions with games. One always had Street Fighter IV on with arcade sticks, and another had Rock Band going. Had many beers throughout the night, and highlights were participating in a Rock Band tournament with VGevo users Crackerjack, Project and Alex and later tearing up a lot of two player Big Buck Hunter with 9-Volt!
While the first day of InDisFest rocked, the second day easily surpassed it. Started off the day meeting up with my old coworker and friend Corey, who I have not seen in four years since he moved to South Carolina. He lived only two hours away from Atlanta, so we made plans to meet up in Atlanta and then to hang out with him in his hometown for the next couple days. VGevo user SpoilerAlert, who also lives in Atlanta and also owns a local Sonic, was able to hook everyone there with half off Sonic for lunch! Badass! I definitely indulged since it was only my second time ever at a Sonic (the first was 5 years prior), and I got two big 'ol Limeades! We had a few hours to kill afterwards before the final meet up of InDisFest, so we checked out a Frys electronics store which I have never been to before. I heard countless tales on how they're better than Best Buy, and after being there myself, I will agree with that too because Frys has a far better selection and better prices in almost every department compared to Best Buy. Too bad it is mostly a southern chain.
The final meet up of the night was at a videogame bar in Atlanta called Battle & Brew. They had several televisions set up there and a library of games to play there, and InDis somehow convinced the owners to hook us up with an amazing drink special in the form of $6 pitchers of Newcastle(they usually go for $15 in my neck of the woods)! Played a ton of games with Corey and other VGevo users like a complete round of Golden Tee Golf with Corey and VGevo podcaster Scott, and lots of Madden 2010 and NBA 2K10 while taking in Interactive Distraction live 3-hour, 100th episode recording! It is quite a listen, and an awesome way to celebrate their 100th show, if you got the time right click and give it a listen, if you're patient enough you will hear me make a couple of cameos. Overall InDisFest was a blast! Enjoyed taking in the drinks and chilling and playing games with the VGevo community, and I really hope they do something like this again next year!
Spent the next couple days in South Carolina hanging out with Corey and his wife Suzy. Corey introduced me to some awesome Southern restaurants I have never been too like the Five Guys burger joint, an awesome Chinese buffett and a fine restaurant by the name of Stacks. Of course I had to hit up the legendary WaffleHouse while we were down there too. Corey has the Direct Ticket Superfan package and we were able to watch the Niners game and Saints game on DVR, and in HD! Spending the day drinking beer and watching football equals a win in my book, at the end of the day Corey schooled me in NCAA College Football 09 to end the gridiron madness. Next day Corey had a couple of his friends up and we rented a bunch of games to play for the day. We played a lot of Guitar Hero 5, and then rotated losers in Madden NFL 2010 for a few games.
Just had a good time overall hanging out with Corey again and brought back many memories of our gaming sessions from several years ago! To top off the trip, on the way back to the airport to drop me off we made time to stop at a Dave & Busters for an hour. Never been there before, but after going there it restored my faith in American arcades. So many new arcade games were there to my surprise(tons of light gun games like all four Time Crisis and House of the Dead titles, and tons more!), many I had no idea existed before like Madden, Need for Speed Carbon and there was even a Guitar Hero Arcade cabinet. Overall this was a badass vacation, and greatly helped ease the pain of missing a day of it due to flight delays. Believe it or not, this was the Cliff Notes version of my trip, I picked up a nice Sony portable audio recorder, and Corey and I recorded an episode of On Tap the day before I went back home, so if you want to hear even more details from vacation, right click and download and listen away!
-That midnight launch for Modern Warfare 2 was pretty crazy. Our town's pair of local Gamestops had over 1000 preorders combined, a new record from what they tell me. I managed to save $60 though because Joey let me borrow his copy since we work different shifts and I was able to plow through the campaign in about 6-7 hours. I will admit I have no Call of Duty skillz0rz no matter how conservative I play and had to turn difficulty down to Recruit by the 5th mission. Still one hell of a campaign and is right up there, if not better than the previous Modern Warfare campaign with even more intense and exciting moments.
Also got to dabble a little on Xbox Live with Geoff and AcesHigh. Managed to get a few kills here and there (I even went a round with 0 kills), but yes overall I still royally suck at Call of Duty online and am not thinking twice about not plopping down $60 for it. Oh yeah, thanks Infinity Ward for disabling Party Chat, in return we had to listen to a little kid give someone crap for being married and still playing videogames in his 40s, despite the guy never giving out his actual age and sounding more like in his 20s than anything....awwww Xbox Live, you never cease to amaze me!
-I finished the first Mass Effect book Revelation. Surprisingly good read considering I am not much at all into sci-fi. Makes me want to pick up the game again. I already have the next book Ascension and am tempted to start that one next right after it, but last week Hulk Hogan's new autobiography came out and I am craving to see how many lies it is filled up with. His first book from 2002 that came out under the WWE Books label was pretty ridiculous, and this one is supposedly catering towards all the drama that has been going on with his divorce and son Nick going to jail over the past couple of years.
-Got a chance to bust out some more karaoke recently at Bucs last week for the first time in a couple months. I was inspired to go there with all the Lips I have been playing lately. The song I chose to belt out was "Enter Sandman," and I think I got a small contingent of the 20 or so people at Bucs that night boppin! The kamikaze song picked for me by the DJ was "Beat It," and well, I could have done better. Tuesdays have been pretty fun for the most part since switching to my new days off since April. I usually meet up with Joey for happy $1 beers and pizzas at Bucs, and later grab a few drinks with Dave and Adam. I called it an early night this last Tuesday around 9:30 because at that point I was up for roughly 27 hours straight, and everyone else looked like they were ready to call it an early night too, but come to find out they stayed out until the bars closed at 2am and got completely smashed because they won a bunch of shots in the beat the dealer special they have on Tuesdays.
-Watched a good DVD from Netflix recently - The Story of Anvil. A metal band that pioneered the Metal that Metallica, Megadeath and Slayer made popular a year before, but quickly faded into obscurity when they dominated the Metal scene. Somehow they managed to stick together all these years, and the documentary chronicles their many trying times and how they are still managing to score gigs and stay together. I never even heard of these guys before, but found this to be a very interesting watch, a definite must see for metal fans!
-Went to Ground Round and caught the first Thursday game of the season with Paul and Leann as the 49ers took on Paul's hometown Bears. Even though it was, as JR would say, a bowling shoe ugly game filled with many penalties and wrapped up with a baseball score of 10-6. Not the most exciting game to say the least, but at least the 49ers finally won and ended their four game losing streak. Even though the Niners have five losses I would not totally dismiss them as a bottom tier team, they are just horrible in the clutch as four of their five losses have been within one score. So many heartbreak losses this season, at least the Bears lost the way the Niners have been their last several games, with a last minute desperation pass that ended up in a turnover. Weird to see Alex Smith back at the helm of QB too, look like he is doing decent, maybe he will finally live up to that number one draft pick potential!
-Thus another long Gruel blog comes to an end, later everyone!
-As promised in my last blog, here are some of the details from my vacation to South Carolina and Georgia. It started off disastrous. While at our local airport waiting for my flight, a student pilot literally forgot to put down their landing gear and belly-slided across the runway. No one was hurt, but it led to about 3 and a half hours of flight delays which resulted in missing my connecting flight and staying overnight in Indianapolis. Only my third time flying and that was the second time I had to stay overnight due to delayed flights! Always book an extra day to your vacation so you can be prepared for this people! :)
I touched down in Atlanta the next morning which is where InDis host, Chris picked me up. Got to meet a lot of new and familiar faces from VGevo at InDisFest. First day activities included catching lunch at Big Pie in the Sky, which I suggested after catching the joint being spotlighted on the Atlanta episode of Man vs. Food. About a dozen of us were there and we all teamed up to devour the gigantic Carnivore pizza. A pie loaded with many types of meat, and quite delicious to boot! At night we met up at a pub called the North River Tavern where InDis was able to set up a few televisions with games. One always had Street Fighter IV on with arcade sticks, and another had Rock Band going. Had many beers throughout the night, and highlights were participating in a Rock Band tournament with VGevo users Crackerjack, Project and Alex and later tearing up a lot of two player Big Buck Hunter with 9-Volt!
While the first day of InDisFest rocked, the second day easily surpassed it. Started off the day meeting up with my old coworker and friend Corey, who I have not seen in four years since he moved to South Carolina. He lived only two hours away from Atlanta, so we made plans to meet up in Atlanta and then to hang out with him in his hometown for the next couple days. VGevo user SpoilerAlert, who also lives in Atlanta and also owns a local Sonic, was able to hook everyone there with half off Sonic for lunch! Badass! I definitely indulged since it was only my second time ever at a Sonic (the first was 5 years prior), and I got two big 'ol Limeades! We had a few hours to kill afterwards before the final meet up of InDisFest, so we checked out a Frys electronics store which I have never been to before. I heard countless tales on how they're better than Best Buy, and after being there myself, I will agree with that too because Frys has a far better selection and better prices in almost every department compared to Best Buy. Too bad it is mostly a southern chain.
The final meet up of the night was at a videogame bar in Atlanta called Battle & Brew. They had several televisions set up there and a library of games to play there, and InDis somehow convinced the owners to hook us up with an amazing drink special in the form of $6 pitchers of Newcastle(they usually go for $15 in my neck of the woods)! Played a ton of games with Corey and other VGevo users like a complete round of Golden Tee Golf with Corey and VGevo podcaster Scott, and lots of Madden 2010 and NBA 2K10 while taking in Interactive Distraction live 3-hour, 100th episode recording! It is quite a listen, and an awesome way to celebrate their 100th show, if you got the time right click and give it a listen, if you're patient enough you will hear me make a couple of cameos. Overall InDisFest was a blast! Enjoyed taking in the drinks and chilling and playing games with the VGevo community, and I really hope they do something like this again next year!
Spent the next couple days in South Carolina hanging out with Corey and his wife Suzy. Corey introduced me to some awesome Southern restaurants I have never been too like the Five Guys burger joint, an awesome Chinese buffett and a fine restaurant by the name of Stacks. Of course I had to hit up the legendary WaffleHouse while we were down there too. Corey has the Direct Ticket Superfan package and we were able to watch the Niners game and Saints game on DVR, and in HD! Spending the day drinking beer and watching football equals a win in my book, at the end of the day Corey schooled me in NCAA College Football 09 to end the gridiron madness. Next day Corey had a couple of his friends up and we rented a bunch of games to play for the day. We played a lot of Guitar Hero 5, and then rotated losers in Madden NFL 2010 for a few games.
Just had a good time overall hanging out with Corey again and brought back many memories of our gaming sessions from several years ago! To top off the trip, on the way back to the airport to drop me off we made time to stop at a Dave & Busters for an hour. Never been there before, but after going there it restored my faith in American arcades. So many new arcade games were there to my surprise(tons of light gun games like all four Time Crisis and House of the Dead titles, and tons more!), many I had no idea existed before like Madden, Need for Speed Carbon and there was even a Guitar Hero Arcade cabinet. Overall this was a badass vacation, and greatly helped ease the pain of missing a day of it due to flight delays. Believe it or not, this was the Cliff Notes version of my trip, I picked up a nice Sony portable audio recorder, and Corey and I recorded an episode of On Tap the day before I went back home, so if you want to hear even more details from vacation, right click and download and listen away!
-That midnight launch for Modern Warfare 2 was pretty crazy. Our town's pair of local Gamestops had over 1000 preorders combined, a new record from what they tell me. I managed to save $60 though because Joey let me borrow his copy since we work different shifts and I was able to plow through the campaign in about 6-7 hours. I will admit I have no Call of Duty skillz0rz no matter how conservative I play and had to turn difficulty down to Recruit by the 5th mission. Still one hell of a campaign and is right up there, if not better than the previous Modern Warfare campaign with even more intense and exciting moments.
Also got to dabble a little on Xbox Live with Geoff and AcesHigh. Managed to get a few kills here and there (I even went a round with 0 kills), but yes overall I still royally suck at Call of Duty online and am not thinking twice about not plopping down $60 for it. Oh yeah, thanks Infinity Ward for disabling Party Chat, in return we had to listen to a little kid give someone crap for being married and still playing videogames in his 40s, despite the guy never giving out his actual age and sounding more like in his 20s than anything....awwww Xbox Live, you never cease to amaze me!
-I finished the first Mass Effect book Revelation. Surprisingly good read considering I am not much at all into sci-fi. Makes me want to pick up the game again. I already have the next book Ascension and am tempted to start that one next right after it, but last week Hulk Hogan's new autobiography came out and I am craving to see how many lies it is filled up with. His first book from 2002 that came out under the WWE Books label was pretty ridiculous, and this one is supposedly catering towards all the drama that has been going on with his divorce and son Nick going to jail over the past couple of years.
-Got a chance to bust out some more karaoke recently at Bucs last week for the first time in a couple months. I was inspired to go there with all the Lips I have been playing lately. The song I chose to belt out was "Enter Sandman," and I think I got a small contingent of the 20 or so people at Bucs that night boppin! The kamikaze song picked for me by the DJ was "Beat It," and well, I could have done better. Tuesdays have been pretty fun for the most part since switching to my new days off since April. I usually meet up with Joey for happy $1 beers and pizzas at Bucs, and later grab a few drinks with Dave and Adam. I called it an early night this last Tuesday around 9:30 because at that point I was up for roughly 27 hours straight, and everyone else looked like they were ready to call it an early night too, but come to find out they stayed out until the bars closed at 2am and got completely smashed because they won a bunch of shots in the beat the dealer special they have on Tuesdays.
-Watched a good DVD from Netflix recently - The Story of Anvil. A metal band that pioneered the Metal that Metallica, Megadeath and Slayer made popular a year before, but quickly faded into obscurity when they dominated the Metal scene. Somehow they managed to stick together all these years, and the documentary chronicles their many trying times and how they are still managing to score gigs and stay together. I never even heard of these guys before, but found this to be a very interesting watch, a definite must see for metal fans!
-Went to Ground Round and caught the first Thursday game of the season with Paul and Leann as the 49ers took on Paul's hometown Bears. Even though it was, as JR would say, a bowling shoe ugly game filled with many penalties and wrapped up with a baseball score of 10-6. Not the most exciting game to say the least, but at least the 49ers finally won and ended their four game losing streak. Even though the Niners have five losses I would not totally dismiss them as a bottom tier team, they are just horrible in the clutch as four of their five losses have been within one score. So many heartbreak losses this season, at least the Bears lost the way the Niners have been their last several games, with a last minute desperation pass that ended up in a turnover. Weird to see Alex Smith back at the helm of QB too, look like he is doing decent, maybe he will finally live up to that number one draft pick potential!
-Thus another long Gruel blog comes to an end, later everyone!
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