Longklaw.com

Christmas was last Friday. It was another day in quarantine with not much happening.

I worked half a day. I streamed Overwatch for a few hours after work. I had Chinese takeout and watched Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max. The food was good, but the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the first one.

Hoping for better times next year. And snow.

What did I get for Christmas and my birthday this year.

a map of Portland neighborhoods poster

lots of fish food

fish cards and stickers

a bristlr worm trap

star wars card deck

an exercise ball

a pack of Reese’s trees

Star Trek: Picard Season 1

Overwatch Monopoly

Wakanda Forever board game

Star Trek Five-Year Mission board game

I treated myself to an Oculus Quest 2, an Xbox Series X, and a PlayStation 5, though the PS5 won’t be here for another couple of weeks.

I’m at a point where I’m tired of hearing about how rough this year has been. Hopefully this will be one of the last times I mention it. Everyone can go into the new year with a new outlook and attitude

There were many positives this year: finally getting a new job, making health a priority, getting to see Xander again, getting into a streaming habit, taking part in all the virtual events with PDX Gaymers, helping elect a new president elected, getting new gadgets, spending so much time with the dogs, and so on.

As soon as the pandemic hit, I decided I wasn’t going to stress over that list of goals I set last year. It’s okay if I wasn’t productive as I wanted to be. I did meet a few of them I think. I’m not going to bother setting any for next year. Hopefully before the end of the year we’ll be able to start having game nights or going to happy hours again.

Time will tell.

Unfortunately, I had to work today and I’m working a half day tomorrow. Tonight, I finished a book to meet my book goal for the year. Now I plan to play video games, watch TV, and chat with friends while enjoying the most expensive bottle of wine I’ve ever bought.

As always, have a great year and take care of each other!

Three weekends ago (the weekend after PAX). I went to Rose City Comic Con. I went back to work after a week long vacation after then and was swamped, so I didn’t have time to write about it.

I won’t do a blow-by-blow as usual, but I will say that this convention, unlike PAX, was more about panels.  There was some cool stuff on the exhibit floor (such as a Dragonball Z exhibit), but I spent most of my time there taking pictures of cosplayers.  I did some artwork from local artists like I normally do.

I went to panels featuring Kristen Bauer, Michael Biehn and Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members (Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, and Michael Dorn), David Tennant, Felicia Day, Overwatch voice actresses Lucy Pohl and Charlet Chung, John Barrowman, Catherine Tate, Karl Urban, Smallville stars Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, Michael Rooker,  and Evangeline Lilly.

I didn’t get any autographs this year, but I did get photo ops with Tenant and the TNG cast members.

They had a board game section which I didn’t check out because I didn’t see anything being played that I was interested in.  Maybe next year.

I ran into my friend Daniel on the second day, but we didn’t hang out long before we got separated.  Again, I kinda like doing my own thing at cons.

I really enjoyed being at RCCC again this year.  It was a exhausting having cons 2 weekends in a row, but I don’t regret it.  I think RCCC is later in the month next year, so that won’t be a problem. I’m so glad to have an event like this right in my back yard.

I have been Overwatch a LOT lately. When the game 1st came out, I played it for a while, but got distracted by other games. That always happens with me. I played it on and off after that, but over the past few months I’ve been a little obsessed with it. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t play it for a least a little while.

One reason I like Overwatch is because it’s one of the few online multiplayer games that I’m not terrible at. I don’t know if I win more games that I lose, but with certain characters, I kill more than I die. I can actually carry a team at times. When the game was first released, I got a little frustrated at some point because I wasn’t winning much. Either the great players left or went to competitive mode when it was released or I got better. Maybe a little of each. I haven’t been doing that well over the past few weeks, but I’m guessing that a lot of players have come back to the game because of the Halloween content. In some multiplayer games like Call of Duty, you have to do play well to see the best stuff in the game. When I played CoD, I never got to do drops and other cool moves no matter how much I played. In Overwatch, I’m pretty sure I’ve done everyone’s Ultimate move.

Overwatch has different character types and each character is so different. My main characters are Solder 76 and D.Va. I also play Symmetra in certain scenarios. I’ve been trying out Mercy, Sombra, and Osira recently and I’ve had a decent amount of success with them. Lately, I’ve been starting out each session with a Mystery Heroes match or two and it’s been great getting experience with characters I don’t use much.

Earlier this year, the Microsoft Store at Pioneer Place reached out to PDX Gaymers (the meetup that I organize) about having events at their store. They’re trying to build a gaming community here in Portland. I’ve hosted 2 Overwatch events at their store recently and I’m hosting another one this weekend. The next event is an Overwatch/Heroes of the Storm event and it looks to be the biggest event we’ve had at the Microsoft Store yet.

Overwatch is my game right now. I can’t remember the last time I was this into a game. I’m glad that I’ve found something that I can really get into and is still fun after all this time. Blizzard knows how to make long-lasting games it seems. If you want to play, I’m “longklaw” on PSN and “longklaw#1434” on Battle.net.