Listen to music more. I didn’t do so well in the first few months of the year, but it picked up after that. Between new CDs, SiriusXM, and live music, I think I did well.
Read 20 books. I read 20 books. I might be able to hit 21 by the end of the day.
Go to a Halloween party. Okay, so I bought tickets to a Halloween party that I had heard about. A few days before party, I got an email saying that they were going to change it to an indoor party, which meant fewer people could come. They offered me ticket to a couples only event they were also having, but I didn’t have anyone to go with. I decided to stay home that night.
Go to a Christmas party. I went to my company’s Christmas party and had a great time.
Buy new clothes. I bought new shoes, shirts, jeans, socks, and coats. I almost bought a new suit, but they couldn’t get anything to fit me when I needed it.
Meet new people. I’ve met new people at work and outside of work. I need to hang out with them more.
Do social gaming. I’ve done more social gaming this year. It’s been all online. P.A.X. inspired me to do more board gaming, but so far that hasn’t gone anywhere. I recently found out about a couple of groups trying to get a regular gaming night going, but with the holidays nothing got off the ground. Maybe in the new year.
Start buying collectibles. I’ve been doing a good job of growing my collection of geeky items. Following Brian’s suggestion, I’ve been documenting them on Facebook, Google+, and Flickr.
What a great year this has been. I moved across the country to a great city with lots of exciting things to do. I’ve made new friends and I have a job that I love.I’m not going to make a list for 2013. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.
Here’s my list for 2012. Hopefully I’ll have an even better success rate than I did in 2011.
Listen to music more. I want to try to get back into music like I used to be.
Read 20 books. I read 17 this year according to Goodreads. 20 should be doable.
Go to a Halloween party. I’ve never been to one or even dressed up for Halloween. That needs to change.
Go to a Christmas party. I’ve never been to one of these either.
Buy new clothes. I shouldn’t have any excuses not to this year. I want to buy a few nice things while I’m at it.
Meet new people. I should meet plenty of new people in Portland.
Do social gaming. Whether it’s board games or online video games, I want to game more with other people. Playing with by myself gets old after a while.
Start buying collectibles. I want to grow my collection of geeky items. I have Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Dexter-related items, but I want more.
Well, the PlayStation Network has been back for a little over a week. The PlayStation Store should be back soon.
I bought L.A. Noire for the PS3 and everything is fine so far. The only time it froze up was when I foolishly hit the PlayStation Store button. I’m returning the Xbox 360 version today.
I was very excited to play L.A. Noire when I got it Tuesday. I pre-ordered it when I saw first saw footage of it at the beginning of the year. Everything I saw and heard about it after that made me think that this would be a great game. After all, it’s from Rockstar and they have a great track record.
When I finally got home from work and put the game in, it froze during the opening cut scene. I’m thinking that this is no big deal because every game freezes at some point. I started the game again and got to play for a little while before it froze again. This kept happening, but less and less time passed before it froze again. When I stopped playing I was at a point where I couldn’t progress because the game kept freezing in the same spot. I was MAD. Every once in a while I come across a game that won’t stop freezing on the 360. Call of Duty 4 and Ghostbusters are 2 examples. I figure that it’s something about my console and the game that don’t go well together. Maybe I just need a new Xbox? I was thinking about sending my copy of L.A. Noire back and getting the PS3 version. However, these comments on the Rockstar website and other articles I’ve seen show that many people are having the same problem on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Not everybody, but it seems like enough to show that there is a problem.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do at this point. Maybe they’ll figure something out before my 2-week window to return the game is over. I’m just disappointed that I can’t play the game. What I did get to play was a lot of fun. I hope I can continue soon.
Remember when one of the benefits of console gaming over PC gaming was that you could count on any game released on a console to work on that console? I guess that’s not the case anymore.
It’s been almost 7 years, but I have finally found another MMORPG that I can get into: DC Universe Online. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s not weird that I like this game because the last MMORPG that I really got into was City of Heroes. I guess I like being a superhero.
I bought the PS3 version and it is taking time to get used to playing an MMORPG on a console. I pre-ordered this version before I got a new PC in November. My old PC wouldn’t have handled it well. I never thought to change my order. I don’t really like playing computer games these days anyway. I think the lengthy download that takes place before you can play the game might not have taken so long on the PC, but I don’t know that for sure. Menu navigation and chatting is awkward (even with a keyboard) on the PS3, but combat is as easy as any other game. I have heard about some issues that have caused them to have to take the servers down, but those seem to take place when I’m not playing.
The missions usually are “defeat x number of this kind of enemy” or “do this action x number of times”, but that’s pretty standard for this type of game. I just like going out and using my superpowers on people, leveling up, and gaining new powers. I did my first arena mission yesterday with 3 other players and it was a blast. I want to do some pvp stuff, but the wait time on those is too long.
I think the main reason I like this game so much is that it’s set in the DC Universe. You start out in either Metropolis or Gotham City. You also have access The Watchtower. I have a feeling they’ll add more areas later, but you have plenty to do as it is. I geek out every time I see a DC character standing around and it’s cool to fight alongside them.
I have two characters, both on the Crisis server. One is Heatstorm, a fire-based character. The other is Dr Destiny, a sorcery-based character. I think I’ll get a lot of play time out of this game. I might’ve bought a lifetime membership, but that option isn’t available on the PS3. Oh well.
I ended up canceling my gym membership today. There’s no use in paying when I wasn’t going anymore. I already get up around 6 every morning and I don’t want to have to get up any earlier to work out. Also, I was having trouble motivating myself to go back out to work out after I got home from work.
I did, however, buy Wii Fit about a week and a half ago and have used it almost every day. Some activity is better than nothing. I just hope it doesn’t get boring.
I had some more weird dreams the night before last.
In one dream I was at Northpark Mall in Ridgeland with my sister and brother-in-law. When it was time to go, I left them to return to my car, which was in a parking garage even though in reality there are no parking garages at the mall. I discovered that a gang had taken over the parking garage and they were all pointing guns at me. I asked some of them if I could go to my car and they directed me which way to go. They were sending me through door after door and it became obvious that they weren’t taking me to my car. When I tried to get away somebody pulled out a knife and stabbed me. That’s when I woke up.
The next dream had me in some kind of scavenger hunt/contest where each clue would send my team to our next destination where we would find another clue and so on…. It reminds me of that show Drive, which not many people saw. My team was trying to figure out where we needed to go next. I thought I was begin clever in the way that I interpreted the clue we were working on, but it turns out that I led my team into a trap. The bad guy that was holding us said that one of us had to die. He drew a random number and that was the number 6. Guess what? The number 6 was my number. I was taken into a room with a toilet. A tablet dropped into the toilet from the ceiling and the room began to fill with gas. That’s when I woke up.
Weird, huh? It makes me think of that song “Mad World”: And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I wouldn’t say they are the best, but they are interesting. I also had a dream about playing Lost Odyssey that night. I bought it a couple of weeks ago, but still haven’t played it.
I’ve been itching to get into another MMORPG and last week I started playing The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. I had heard some good things about it, so I wanted to try it. It’s The Lord of the Rings, so it had to be good, right? I don’t usually do this, but I bought it from their website and downloaded it instead of going to a store to buy it. I haven’t gotten very far into it, but I’m having a blast so far. I always have fun in the beginning of these games. Except for maybe Dungeons & Dragons Online. In hindsight, I don’t think I really enjoyed that one as much as some of the others I’ve played. Anyway, I’m on the Landroval server. I’m a human male guardian from Bree-land and my name is Longklaw (of course).
I had heard about Lost Odyssey before it was released and knew that I would get around to playing it sooner or later. Around the time it came out I saw an advertisement for it on TV. I knew right then that I would want to play it sooner than later and that I wanted to download the song that was playing. I now know that the song is “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane. I downloaded the advertisement on Xbox Live and I’ve already watched in several times. I’ll probably watch it many more times until I get the game. It’s one of the best video game advertisements that I’ve ever seen. Lost Odyssey will definitely be the next game that I play.
Some time over the past couple of weeks we finished Blue Dragon, which is a JRPG on the Xbox 360. I got it as a Christmas present and it was a lot of fun. It’s a single-player game, so we took turns playing it. It has some gameplay features that are really cool. The graphics look really good on a standard def TV. I guess another play through is called for now that I have an HDTV to play on. Besides, I want to get some of those achievements we missed the first time around. The guide for this game is great. It’s one of the best that I’ve used recently. I just wish they had included maps of the Overworld areas.
One thing that will stand out is the boss fight song. They play the same song during every boss fight. And it’s kind of a short song, so they loop it over and over again. I did some digging around and I found out that the name of the song is “Eternity” and it is sung by Ian Gillan. Ian Gillan is the lead singer of Deep Purple. Remember that song “Smoke on the Water”? That’s Deep Purple. “Eternity” is more amusing than anything else, but it does start to get on your nerves after a while.
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