Saturday, January 28, 2012
-Hey Yo! Sorry for going another month without a blog, but it has been pretty hectic lately with the holidays and working crazy hours due to said holidays. Christmas came and went. I had to celebrate it three times, first at my sister's at Montevideo, then with my mom and another time at my dad's. Highlights from that was geeking out over National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Jenga becoming the greatest drinking game of all time. It all added up to a lot of celebrating, and luckily we had some fantastic weather and I can safely this is the first time we had no snow on the ground on Christmas, and it was in the 40s that day to make it even more bizarre.
-I had an opportunity to take New Year's Eve off, but declined because of all the drinking I did with the family over Christmas and drinking a bit more at a Five Finger Death Punch/Hatebreed concert in Fargo a few days later. The concert was at Playmakers/The Venue/The Hub (its name changes every few years), and it was the first time I caught a concert there sold out. Which made it so we could not get barely a view at the actual stage and we had to watch on the monitors. We ended up leaving during the last band and had a better time grabbing some drinks and playing blackjack at Bucs.
-I was thrilled to see the 49ers finish with their best record and make the playoffs since 2002 when they went 10-6. They went 13-3 this year and had the most intense final five minutes of a football game I have ever seen when they battled the Saints that saw a game of no defense and each time make amazing score after amazing score. In the end it came down to the 49ers winning by essentially having the ball last. My longtime friend Corey was born and raised in New Orleans and we talked up the game quite a bit afterwards. I was pretty happy for a week, then pretty pissed when the 49ers lost in overtime to the Giants. I'll blame that on the 49ers punt returner screwing up two plays. Oh well, the 49ers did amazing with mostly the same players they had the year before. Props to Jim Harbaugh for taking them in the right direction.
-After three years my old flip phone finally died on me and I took the plunge to a smart phone. I ended up getting an Galaxy S 2 from Sprint because they still offer unlimited data. I am digging it so far, and making great use of the apps so far. I have not played that many games on it however. Does Words with Friends count? I tried a few random ones I got from the Amazon Free App of the Day, but nothing too impressive. Other than that, I use the weather app and calendar and task manager app the most on there. Hopefully this phone will last me awhile.
-I made one of those New Year's resolutions and made one to lose weight like so many others. I enrolled in a new gym that opened up in town with an unbelievable rate of $10/hour and have been going 4-5 times a week lately. Last few times I went I have been really stepping up my time running on the treadmill and elliptical and have been feeling quite the difference out there. Hopefully I will be in decent shape by year's end.
-I had the worst Risk night ever. I met up with the usual suspects last week and we started off with five player free for all game, and by the fifth turn I was out. We then did a team game after that and I failed in that endeavor too. This went down the day before the 49ers game in the NFC Championship, so I am solely holding myself responsible for their loss. I also attended a WWE House Show that same weekend with a bunch of friends. It was a great time. We all met up at Famous Dave's before for some amazing BBQ and had a great time at the show where our main event was a great cage match between The Miz and CM Punk.
-I saw quite a few movies at the theater since my blog. I liked the new Sherlock Holmes film a lot more than the first. Lots of great suspense, action and mystery throughout. 8.5/10 Mission Impossible 4 was better than I thought it would be, and it set new records for most absurd CG and action set pieces I haven seen in a flick. 8.5/10 I wish I would not have seen the foreign version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before seeing the American version. I always had this sense of I knew what was coming next even though this version added in a few new scenes. Had I not, I probably would have walked out of this a lot more higher on it. 8/10 Finally, I saw Red Tails a few days ago and thought that was a fine flick too, but I could not help but feel they could have done more to capture a grittier WWII experience if they went all out with an R rating like Saving Private Ryan. 7.5/10. For a recent On Tap, Matt and I did an all movies podcast covering all the movies we saw from 2011, and ranking our best and worst films of 2011. Click here to check it out.
-I beat several games since my last blog. I finished 2011 just one game shy of what I finished 2010 with. In December I played through the online coop campaign of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile with Jarrod. That was a mindless, fun hack 'n slasher and I have since started the main campaign. I also completed the arcade dungeon crawler, Deathspank after chipping away at it for over a year. In January Matt and I romped through some old school arcade online coop in TMNT Turtles in Time ReShelled and X-Men over XBLA. I later plowed through the standalone Gears of War 3 DLC side story, Raam's Shadow. It stood on its own as a fun little three hour experience that took place before the first Gears of War. Finally, I finished Bastion for XBLA, and it was quite the excellent experience. The narrator really added a whole new element to the experience, and having well polished dungeon crawl gameplay with an unorthodox set of weapons really fleshed out my time with it. I really dug the universe and it is easily my favorite XBLA game that released last year.
Other games I have been putting time into included getting about halfway through the Motorstorm Apocalypse storyline. I finished the story arc for the rookie driver and am roughly halfway through the pro driver. I also put several hours into Driver: San Francisco, and am loving how polished it is. That new shift feature works almost too good. Finally, I have been playing a bit of NCAA Football 12 and the new NFL Blitz on XBLA with the latest NFL Playoff fervor going around. I am almost through my first year of college in my Road to Glory mode and am already a starter with LSU. I only played a few games of NFL Blitz and it recaptures that classic Blitz feel, but I miss the late tackles.
-That wraps up this blog, hopefully I will be on time next month, later!
-I had an opportunity to take New Year's Eve off, but declined because of all the drinking I did with the family over Christmas and drinking a bit more at a Five Finger Death Punch/Hatebreed concert in Fargo a few days later. The concert was at Playmakers/The Venue/The Hub (its name changes every few years), and it was the first time I caught a concert there sold out. Which made it so we could not get barely a view at the actual stage and we had to watch on the monitors. We ended up leaving during the last band and had a better time grabbing some drinks and playing blackjack at Bucs.
-I was thrilled to see the 49ers finish with their best record and make the playoffs since 2002 when they went 10-6. They went 13-3 this year and had the most intense final five minutes of a football game I have ever seen when they battled the Saints that saw a game of no defense and each time make amazing score after amazing score. In the end it came down to the 49ers winning by essentially having the ball last. My longtime friend Corey was born and raised in New Orleans and we talked up the game quite a bit afterwards. I was pretty happy for a week, then pretty pissed when the 49ers lost in overtime to the Giants. I'll blame that on the 49ers punt returner screwing up two plays. Oh well, the 49ers did amazing with mostly the same players they had the year before. Props to Jim Harbaugh for taking them in the right direction.
-After three years my old flip phone finally died on me and I took the plunge to a smart phone. I ended up getting an Galaxy S 2 from Sprint because they still offer unlimited data. I am digging it so far, and making great use of the apps so far. I have not played that many games on it however. Does Words with Friends count? I tried a few random ones I got from the Amazon Free App of the Day, but nothing too impressive. Other than that, I use the weather app and calendar and task manager app the most on there. Hopefully this phone will last me awhile.
-I made one of those New Year's resolutions and made one to lose weight like so many others. I enrolled in a new gym that opened up in town with an unbelievable rate of $10/hour and have been going 4-5 times a week lately. Last few times I went I have been really stepping up my time running on the treadmill and elliptical and have been feeling quite the difference out there. Hopefully I will be in decent shape by year's end.
-I had the worst Risk night ever. I met up with the usual suspects last week and we started off with five player free for all game, and by the fifth turn I was out. We then did a team game after that and I failed in that endeavor too. This went down the day before the 49ers game in the NFC Championship, so I am solely holding myself responsible for their loss. I also attended a WWE House Show that same weekend with a bunch of friends. It was a great time. We all met up at Famous Dave's before for some amazing BBQ and had a great time at the show where our main event was a great cage match between The Miz and CM Punk.
-I saw quite a few movies at the theater since my blog. I liked the new Sherlock Holmes film a lot more than the first. Lots of great suspense, action and mystery throughout. 8.5/10 Mission Impossible 4 was better than I thought it would be, and it set new records for most absurd CG and action set pieces I haven seen in a flick. 8.5/10 I wish I would not have seen the foreign version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before seeing the American version. I always had this sense of I knew what was coming next even though this version added in a few new scenes. Had I not, I probably would have walked out of this a lot more higher on it. 8/10 Finally, I saw Red Tails a few days ago and thought that was a fine flick too, but I could not help but feel they could have done more to capture a grittier WWII experience if they went all out with an R rating like Saving Private Ryan. 7.5/10. For a recent On Tap, Matt and I did an all movies podcast covering all the movies we saw from 2011, and ranking our best and worst films of 2011. Click here to check it out.
-I beat several games since my last blog. I finished 2011 just one game shy of what I finished 2010 with. In December I played through the online coop campaign of The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile with Jarrod. That was a mindless, fun hack 'n slasher and I have since started the main campaign. I also completed the arcade dungeon crawler, Deathspank after chipping away at it for over a year. In January Matt and I romped through some old school arcade online coop in TMNT Turtles in Time ReShelled and X-Men over XBLA. I later plowed through the standalone Gears of War 3 DLC side story, Raam's Shadow. It stood on its own as a fun little three hour experience that took place before the first Gears of War. Finally, I finished Bastion for XBLA, and it was quite the excellent experience. The narrator really added a whole new element to the experience, and having well polished dungeon crawl gameplay with an unorthodox set of weapons really fleshed out my time with it. I really dug the universe and it is easily my favorite XBLA game that released last year.
Other games I have been putting time into included getting about halfway through the Motorstorm Apocalypse storyline. I finished the story arc for the rookie driver and am roughly halfway through the pro driver. I also put several hours into Driver: San Francisco, and am loving how polished it is. That new shift feature works almost too good. Finally, I have been playing a bit of NCAA Football 12 and the new NFL Blitz on XBLA with the latest NFL Playoff fervor going around. I am almost through my first year of college in my Road to Glory mode and am already a starter with LSU. I only played a few games of NFL Blitz and it recaptures that classic Blitz feel, but I miss the late tackles.
-That wraps up this blog, hopefully I will be on time next month, later!
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