Sunday, November 21, 2010
-Hey yo! Yup it has been forever since I updated, so this should be yet another lengthy blog. I will try and keep it concise and just a few things I want to touch on since my last entry.
-Alternator died in my Ford Ranger several days ago, which consequently drained my battery so I had to replace that too. Combined, after exchange those two parts robbed me of a little over $200. And it had to happen on the month I put decided to already charge a little more than I usually do per month since I was on vacation. Oh well, it will be fun paying that sucker off, and it was not all that bad to replace. I helped my dad replace it, and we had the alternator and battery replaced in just under an hour. Coincidentally enough, about ten minutes after we finished replacing it, the skies unleashed the first heavy snow of the year on our town.
-A few weeks ago, I went down to the Twin Cities to attend my first ever WWE PPV live. The PPV was WWE Bragging Rights, which was in its second year of existence. As with the last few WWE shows I caught, I attended them with coworkers Dick and Dave. Bragging Rights ended up being an allright show, that started strong, but had a weak main event. Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler delivered a tremendous match, and I am always a sucker for an exciting elimination match, with the seven on seven elimination not disappointing. But then you had the Buried Alive match, where the Undertaker was "Buried Alive" with still another two matches left in the show, and wrestlers kept walking as if nothing just happened. I am probably looking too much into it, but it just felt wrong. Additionally, the main event had a screwy finish as I would expect, with Wade Barrett getting a DQ win over Randy Orton thanks to the circumstances involving John Cena at ringside. It was not a bad show by any means, but far from perfect and I had an awesome time. I picked up a Nexus hat and generic Bragging Rights t-shirt at the show.
Other Twin Cities highlights include making the now mandatory visit to White Castle, where we lost track of how many times one couple used the phrase "real talk." I also ate at a Popeye's for the first time ever. For more thorough encounter of the event, we did a Cheap Pop podcast hours just after Bragging Rights ended, with some of our raw, candid and very inebriated thoughts of the show. Click here to download the episode of The Cheap Pop.
-Just two weeks after WWE Bragging Rights, I flew down to Atlanta for the second annual InDisFest. A community event put on by the Interactive Distractions podcast, a fellow VGevo Podcast Network member that On Tap is also a part of. I was suppose to meet up with Corey down there like I did last year, but fate decided otherwise as him and his wife unexpectedly had their first child two months ahead of schedule. The second InDisFest was just as much fun as the first. The first night of the three days I was there ended up with everyone who flew in a day early hanging out InDis host, Travis' rocking house for a night of drinks and a ton of Super Street Fighter IV. All of the InDis hosts are hardcore Super Street Fighter IV players by the way.
The second day of the weekend I met my new roommate for the weekend, VGevo user MisterNep, who needed a last second roommate that I was able to fulfill. We had an awesome lunch at an Asian grill with a bunch of other InDisFest attendees, and ended up North River Tavern that night where a bunch of televisions and games were set up for everyone to play. I ended up losing two close games of Madden to VGevo users Krackerjack and Aots, which came down to both of them getting last second field goals to seal the deal. There was also a SSFIV tournament I was entered in, now I do not mind throwing down in SF against friends, but I do not hold a candle to the many pros playing at InDisFest and was promptly eliminated. The main event for the evening was InDis getting the band, The Protomen to play. I am not entirely too familiar with their music, but listened to a little bit off their website to know what I was in for. They had the place rocking, and the bar quickly filled up past capacity shortly before they started playing.
The final day of InDisFest started off with Nep and I eating at Steak 'n Shake. It was the first time I ever ate there, and I left craving for them to open up one here in North Dakota. Sometime during this weekend I visited a Frys Electronic Store, which is essentially a badass version of Best Buy and bought a new hard drive to install into my PS3. I finally upgraded my launch 60gb drive with a brand new 250gb drive, and the installation was not all that terrible either, minus the fact I stripped a couple of screws and had to use the needlenose pliers to pry them out.
For the final act of InDisFest, just like last year it concluded with a night of awesomeness at Battle & Brew, a local gaming bar in Atlanta that has several beers on tap, and a plethora of videogames at your disposal to play. I was entered into another Street Fighter tournament, and once again was promptly eliminated. Another contest I failed at was an eating competition dubbed, "The Final Level" where 13 of us in total had 20 minutes to eat a double burger topped with all the fixings, as well as eight slices of pepperoni, and grilled cheese sandwiches acting as the buns along with an order of tator tots. Only four of us finished the challenge on time. I put away the tots and about 65% of the burger within the time limit. I was quite full and did not eat or drink a thing for the next few hours.
Interactive Distractions went on to do a live recording of their podcast from Battle & Brew just like last year. During the show Australian listener RPT gifted one of the InDis hosts with the European import, the Lost Window on DS, which is the sequel to one of my favorite DS games, Hotel Dusk. Upon discovering that developer Cing went bankrupt before they could port the game to North American shores I inquired with RPT where he ordered the game and he got me set and I ordered the game later that very night at Battle & Brew. All told, I had yet another fantastic experience at InDisFest and had a great time gaming it up and enjoying the fellowship of the rest of the VGevo community that made the trip down there. Here is hoping they do it again next year!
-So much more has been going on since my last blog, but I do not want to make this last any longer. I will give a couple quick gaming updates however. After about six months of somewhat consistent play (about one to two hour long sessions a week), I finally completed Red Dead Redemption. Great game, and a great final act that took some bold decision making to pull off. Also finally finished Sniper: Ghost Warrior after sporadically playing that game a mission or two at a time in the course of four or five months. It brought back awesome memories of Sniper Elite on PS2/Xbox, but had a far more anticlimatic ending. I also plowed through Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage DLC within a few days due to me buying New Vegas and not wanting to start it until I plow through all the Fallout 3 DLC first, that makes 2 DLC packs down, 3 to go.
If you thought some of these game completion rates were bad, than wait until you hear how long it took me to beat Mass Effect. I finally beat it shortly after the last blog went up, and after incredibly inconsistent play, I finally conquered the core quest after three years. Now I can finally start Mass Effect 2....or should I??? We also did a few On Tap podcasts since the last blog, but I will only throw the link to the redux of our NES retrospective in your face for now. Make sure to check it out since this time we did not have a time limit to weigh us down and we covered a lot more ground - download the NES Retrospective Redux.
-Ok, and with that I am finally out of here. Thank you everyone for riding out another crazy long blog with me!
-Alternator died in my Ford Ranger several days ago, which consequently drained my battery so I had to replace that too. Combined, after exchange those two parts robbed me of a little over $200. And it had to happen on the month I put decided to already charge a little more than I usually do per month since I was on vacation. Oh well, it will be fun paying that sucker off, and it was not all that bad to replace. I helped my dad replace it, and we had the alternator and battery replaced in just under an hour. Coincidentally enough, about ten minutes after we finished replacing it, the skies unleashed the first heavy snow of the year on our town.
-A few weeks ago, I went down to the Twin Cities to attend my first ever WWE PPV live. The PPV was WWE Bragging Rights, which was in its second year of existence. As with the last few WWE shows I caught, I attended them with coworkers Dick and Dave. Bragging Rights ended up being an allright show, that started strong, but had a weak main event. Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler delivered a tremendous match, and I am always a sucker for an exciting elimination match, with the seven on seven elimination not disappointing. But then you had the Buried Alive match, where the Undertaker was "Buried Alive" with still another two matches left in the show, and wrestlers kept walking as if nothing just happened. I am probably looking too much into it, but it just felt wrong. Additionally, the main event had a screwy finish as I would expect, with Wade Barrett getting a DQ win over Randy Orton thanks to the circumstances involving John Cena at ringside. It was not a bad show by any means, but far from perfect and I had an awesome time. I picked up a Nexus hat and generic Bragging Rights t-shirt at the show.
Other Twin Cities highlights include making the now mandatory visit to White Castle, where we lost track of how many times one couple used the phrase "real talk." I also ate at a Popeye's for the first time ever. For more thorough encounter of the event, we did a Cheap Pop podcast hours just after Bragging Rights ended, with some of our raw, candid and very inebriated thoughts of the show. Click here to download the episode of The Cheap Pop.
-Just two weeks after WWE Bragging Rights, I flew down to Atlanta for the second annual InDisFest. A community event put on by the Interactive Distractions podcast, a fellow VGevo Podcast Network member that On Tap is also a part of. I was suppose to meet up with Corey down there like I did last year, but fate decided otherwise as him and his wife unexpectedly had their first child two months ahead of schedule. The second InDisFest was just as much fun as the first. The first night of the three days I was there ended up with everyone who flew in a day early hanging out InDis host, Travis' rocking house for a night of drinks and a ton of Super Street Fighter IV. All of the InDis hosts are hardcore Super Street Fighter IV players by the way.
The second day of the weekend I met my new roommate for the weekend, VGevo user MisterNep, who needed a last second roommate that I was able to fulfill. We had an awesome lunch at an Asian grill with a bunch of other InDisFest attendees, and ended up North River Tavern that night where a bunch of televisions and games were set up for everyone to play. I ended up losing two close games of Madden to VGevo users Krackerjack and Aots, which came down to both of them getting last second field goals to seal the deal. There was also a SSFIV tournament I was entered in, now I do not mind throwing down in SF against friends, but I do not hold a candle to the many pros playing at InDisFest and was promptly eliminated. The main event for the evening was InDis getting the band, The Protomen to play. I am not entirely too familiar with their music, but listened to a little bit off their website to know what I was in for. They had the place rocking, and the bar quickly filled up past capacity shortly before they started playing.
The final day of InDisFest started off with Nep and I eating at Steak 'n Shake. It was the first time I ever ate there, and I left craving for them to open up one here in North Dakota. Sometime during this weekend I visited a Frys Electronic Store, which is essentially a badass version of Best Buy and bought a new hard drive to install into my PS3. I finally upgraded my launch 60gb drive with a brand new 250gb drive, and the installation was not all that terrible either, minus the fact I stripped a couple of screws and had to use the needlenose pliers to pry them out.
For the final act of InDisFest, just like last year it concluded with a night of awesomeness at Battle & Brew, a local gaming bar in Atlanta that has several beers on tap, and a plethora of videogames at your disposal to play. I was entered into another Street Fighter tournament, and once again was promptly eliminated. Another contest I failed at was an eating competition dubbed, "The Final Level" where 13 of us in total had 20 minutes to eat a double burger topped with all the fixings, as well as eight slices of pepperoni, and grilled cheese sandwiches acting as the buns along with an order of tator tots. Only four of us finished the challenge on time. I put away the tots and about 65% of the burger within the time limit. I was quite full and did not eat or drink a thing for the next few hours.
Interactive Distractions went on to do a live recording of their podcast from Battle & Brew just like last year. During the show Australian listener RPT gifted one of the InDis hosts with the European import, the Lost Window on DS, which is the sequel to one of my favorite DS games, Hotel Dusk. Upon discovering that developer Cing went bankrupt before they could port the game to North American shores I inquired with RPT where he ordered the game and he got me set and I ordered the game later that very night at Battle & Brew. All told, I had yet another fantastic experience at InDisFest and had a great time gaming it up and enjoying the fellowship of the rest of the VGevo community that made the trip down there. Here is hoping they do it again next year!
-So much more has been going on since my last blog, but I do not want to make this last any longer. I will give a couple quick gaming updates however. After about six months of somewhat consistent play (about one to two hour long sessions a week), I finally completed Red Dead Redemption. Great game, and a great final act that took some bold decision making to pull off. Also finally finished Sniper: Ghost Warrior after sporadically playing that game a mission or two at a time in the course of four or five months. It brought back awesome memories of Sniper Elite on PS2/Xbox, but had a far more anticlimatic ending. I also plowed through Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage DLC within a few days due to me buying New Vegas and not wanting to start it until I plow through all the Fallout 3 DLC first, that makes 2 DLC packs down, 3 to go.
If you thought some of these game completion rates were bad, than wait until you hear how long it took me to beat Mass Effect. I finally beat it shortly after the last blog went up, and after incredibly inconsistent play, I finally conquered the core quest after three years. Now I can finally start Mass Effect 2....or should I??? We also did a few On Tap podcasts since the last blog, but I will only throw the link to the redux of our NES retrospective in your face for now. Make sure to check it out since this time we did not have a time limit to weigh us down and we covered a lot more ground - download the NES Retrospective Redux.
-Ok, and with that I am finally out of here. Thank you everyone for riding out another crazy long blog with me!
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