Saw Rogue One

So I, like many others, saw Star Wars: Rogue One this past week. I hope to not spoil it now as I talk about it, but something might slip.
Personally I liked it far better than The Force Awakens. That movie had a many serious problems with it, and while this one too has its issues, they are not nearly so bad. The primarily criticism I have is the pacing, both for reveals and for emotional connections. There were speeches and deaths that were focused on clearly for emotional emphasis, but they lacked the emotional foundation more time, or more effectively used time would provide. Another pacing issue for me was the rather quick reveal of the Death Star being constructed. I know the movie focuses around stealing the plans so it can be destroyed, so of course it is going to be there and be under construction, but then look at the movie poster for Jaws. It very clearly and prominently shows a massive shark, so everyone going in knows it is coming, but it still took time to be revealed. I wish the Death Star were treated more like Bruce, because even if we have known what the Death Star looks likes like and what it is capable of for decades does not mean it does not deserve a good reveal. Even the one it got in A New Hope was better.
On the positive side though, I really liked Darth Vader and Governor Tarkin. Those two characters were very well done and properly cold, calculating, menacing, dominating, lethal bad guys. I cannot say I wanted to see more of them in the movie though, because they could easily have been spoiled with more screen time.
To quickly sum it up, Rogue One has flaws but is a far better example of what I want to see in future Star Wars movies than The Force Awakens.

Busy Week

It is nice to have busy weeks, even if they cannot be easy, but it would be nice if they only lasted seven days. Ah well, that's how life is at times. Guess I should get back to it then. At least I had a good excuse to watch some classic television today, with the airing of two colorized episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Wish they were not so edited though, but that was not enough to keep me from quoting half the script. There are reasons they are considered classics.

Thinking About Mixing It Up

I've been thinking about something recently, and while I have not given it too much thought yet, I might give it a try. The attempt can hardly hurt compared to the current situation. I am considering changing up my resume to instead of listing experiences, as I have been doing and have long been told to do, listing character strengths and then providing examples from my experiences. I wouldn't remove my experiences, but minimize their presence. Based on my experience applying for various jobs anyway, it hardly seems like companies are hiring (or interviewing) based on experiences anyway, so why not try character strengths instead? Might work and it is easy to switch back. (Thank you LaTeX.)

One Holiday Weekend Down

It has not been an exciting Thanksgiving for my family, but it went well. I hope it went well for everyone else.
I guess now the thing to do would be to list things I am thankful for. Well, I both have a lot and little to be thankful for, which I will not consider to be unique because one of the things I am thankful for is my attempts at being wise. I do not know if I succeed, but I do try and feel I at least get closer to that goal than I would without the effort. I am also thankful for my God-given skills and talents: writing; creativity; ingenuity; gaming; intelligence; capacity to self-learn/teach; and my compassion for others. I don't know if I can say of that last one my thanks come from any return, but it is something I want to identify myself with, and so I am thankful for it. (Now, the trick with having a list of things you are thankful for, is finding others who are also thankful for that list.)
Have a good week.

Some Words of Maybe-Wisdom

I think it is safe to say this past week has been a lot more interesting than a lot of people expected. I've learned already to set aside expectations for many things because, honestly, when reality and expectations differ is when things go wrong for you. You start wanting to not accept the reality, either fighting it or denying it, which is not healthy for you or those you involve.
Reality is like a river you want to cross, and your expectations are the path you want it to take. If its actual path differs from what you want, adapt and cross it. Don't try to redirect the river, because it is mightier than you and can drown you. Don't sit on the bank in objection, because then you cannot advance.

Still Proud

A week ago I was really hoping and even expecting the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series this year, but that did not happen. Honestly though, I'm not upset by this outcome. We lost, yes, which is not ideal, but we lost in one of the best World Series in modern baseball and in one of the best Game 7's a World Series has seen.
It might be something about me not everyone likes, but I can be satisfied with a well-fought, but still lost game or fight. I guess it is because the pride, respect, and honor does not come from the victory but from the effort invested, according to my view of the world. Not everyone agrees with this, I'm sure, but it is how I feel about it and so I am still proud of the Cleveland Indians and all they achieved this season. (But let's get that trophy next year.)

An Interesting Time is Ahead

This is going to be an interesting time around here as the Cleveland Indians are going to the World Series, as are the Chicago Cubs. These just happen to be my mother's two favorite teams, so it is not going to be the most pleasant time for her. Me, I want to see the Indians win, but so long as they are good games, I'll be happy.
Oh, one quick thing, I'd love to see Bill Murray and Tom Hanks sharing a suite for even one of the games. Just think it could be a fun experience.

Remember, Relax

Today's Packers game was not easy to watch. Oh there were some very good moments (Go Eddie!)  but a lot of poorer ones; poorer than we are used to. While it can be hard to remember in the moment, but it is important to relax and admit things are not going well. Just keep doing what you can as best as you can, and move forward. It is not easy, but it is the best thing to do. Trust me, just doing your best and moving forward is the best thing to do in in more situations than a football game too. The hard part can be remembering to do that, and getting those around you to remember this plan as well.

Finally Saw A Not-So-Good Movie

Today I finally watched the X-Men: Apocalypse movie. I had seen and heard many opinions about how it was not a good film, and definitely agree. Disjointed stories that made it feel like it was almost a Madlib of plots, uninteresting development for characters that deserved better, and a villain that had severe story-serving power fluctuations. (I can kill a foundry full of people with a glance, but those meddling kids thwarted my plans!)
Anyway, I'm back to focusing on the Packers game.

Boring-Old Me Again

I really don't have anything to talk about this week. Nothing interesting going on and no ideas I feel like sharing. The best I can do is recommend reading The Password is Courage. I first encountered the story as a movie, by the same name, then I looked it up, found it is a true story and from a book. It's the story of a British Sergeant-Major POW in WWII who did some pretty interesting stuff. On one of his escape attempts he was awarded the Iron Cross (a German award) and a lot more that I haven't gotten to yet in the book. Seriously, look the story up, it is pretty amazing and gives a new context to something like the show Hogan's Heroes.

Looking Forward to an Upgrade

Right now I am still quite happy with my computer and all of its components, but I will admit I am looking forward to eventually building a replacement. Yesterday when streaming, there were some serious problems with the stream, and after some more testing I finally figured out what the problem was and why it seemed to come and go. I had it set to capture at my monitor's native resolution (2048x1152) and then downscale it to 1280x720. This downscaling would have to be done by the CPU, and my CPU is not always up for it. It depends on the game and how much it uses the CPU, which is partly why it took me so long to figure it out. I thought the problem was special to the game, but actually it was my general settings and the specific game could alleviate the problem. Well, now it's solved so I will be able to stream in the future without issue. (Though I will admit, I would love it if we could stream and record in OBS with different canvas resolutions, so it is the hardware encoder I am using doing the scaling, instead of the less powerful CPU. Maybe that will happen some day, but it is hard to say, and I could see one thing preventing it from happening.)

More Testing Required

Not too long ago I posted on the Body on Games blog that I am looking at changing how I do the recordings to use the Lossless capability of NVENC. This should allow me to produce higher quality videos (at least visually, if you don't care for my voice) and after some software re-encoding, the results should not be larger than what I had before. Thing is, OBS Studio has been breaking on me, failing to make one video then failing to continue recording another. So, I need to do more testing, which is rather annoying. Fortunately the videos I've been trying to record this way have mostly been for testing only (I was hoping to upload them, but as one-offs and not a series). Part of what is so annoying is I cannot figure out what the source of the problem is. I had a good test before, didn't change anything, and then it's just been breaking, and I can't find any helpful information. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon, but we'll see.

Just some musings

Been a bit since my last post here. Had a more recent one on The Body on Games blog, but then forgot about posting here or just wanted to go to bed. No excuse, just trying to describe the situation.
Anyway, there are a few things I can talk about. The most obvious being what happened on this day fifteen years ago. A day you wish never happened, but at the same time you hope to never forget. Too many days end up being like that, but thankfully there are so many people out there who will do what is necessary to make such days less horrible. Sometimes those efforts claim their lives, which is why we never want to forget what happened.

Let me see, other than that I can mention that I reviewed Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which I enjoyed playing and earlier today I finished a NG+ playthrough that earned me the Pacifist achievement (complete the game without killing anyone). Did not even realize I was going to get that; it was just how I wanted to play. Fun game and it makes me want to play the previous game again; Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Nothing too much else going on, or at least nothing I feel like sharing. How it is sometime. Want to do another TBOG recording tonight (working on FEAR 2: Project Origin) so until next week (or whenever I remember to write one of these again)!

Fun FFmpeg Stuff

Haven't done much with it yet, but earlier today I put together something that could be part of a fun project. FFmpeg has numerous interesting filters, and among them is the 'blend' filter, which has a 'difference' option that will show the differences between two videos (hence the name). I'm not sure when I will do it, but at some point I may take the time to do some testing with this to compare different encoding options, like hardware vs. software, different bitrates, CRF and QP values. I don't know where exactly it will lead me, but I think it will be interesting.
Aside from working on a review for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, that is the only thing all that interesting that happened for me last week, and I don't want to share too much information on the review. Enjoyed the game though!

A Rose by Any Other Name...

It may still smell as sweet, but might not be as fun to say.
In this past week there was an interesting announcement of a name change. Nordic Games is changing its name to THQ Nordic. Remember THQ, the big video game publisher that went bankrupt. Nordic Games bought a number of the IP that were sold at auction, and have now changed their name to reflect their intent to develop those IPs, instead of just being their owner.
All I can say to that is I wish the company the best of luck. They got some good IPs and I would like to see them successfully resurrected. I also hope that this THQ fares better than the last.

Always Something To Do

It is kind of amusing just how easy it can be to always find more projects to work on. I finished the Body on Games recordings in Alien: Isolation, which returns a fair amount of time in the day to me, but now I want to write up a guide on how exactly I do those recordings before getting started on the next recording (for however long I keep to this method; I've been modifying it fairly often). I also have rebuilt a PDF to have fillable forms, to learn how to do it in LaTeX, have another project I'd rather not name, have a book I want to read but want to finish another first, and I'm sure some other things I've forgotten for the moment.
Isn't it funny how that works? You always have more things to do. Probably better than having nothing to do.

A Nice Surprise This Week

I got a nice surprise this week when I got an email from Epic that because I had taken part in the Paragon open beta weekends earlier this year, my account was given a Battle Pack for free. Paragon is currently in an buy-in early-access phase but will be F2P at release, so for now the only way to play when you want, is to purchase a pack. As I do in fact enjoy the game, I was definitely happy to receive this for free, allowing me to play whenever I want.
Some other good stuff also happened this week, but some of it I want to keep to myself for now.

I got nothing

Really, I can't think of anything to share. Nothing has happened to me personally that is worth sharing in some way and I don't feel like commentating on any of the latest news. That stuff is either too depressing or too political. Just not an interesting week to talk about for me... Hopefully this week will be better, but some how I doubt it.

Annoying when Something Sneaks Through

Maybe this is a better fit for the Body on Games blog, but I don't feel like putting it there right now. Started recording in a new game the other day, and I noticed something in the recordings which seemed odd, but I didn't think much of it. I wish I had, but it could be worse.
My monitor has the unusual resolution of 2048x1152, but because it is the monitor's native resolution, that is what I record at. It is still 16x9, so what I do with most videos I intend to upload to YouTube is have FFmpeg scale them down to 1920x1080. Well, it turns out because OBS allows you to place a video source anywhere on the canvas, and to have it scaled down (or up) OBS was actually recording the game at 1920x1080, with black along the bottom and right side.
Fixing this required I rewrite the already complex FFmpeg commands to crop the videos down, but this was a pain because I had to do it in an already complex file that deals with two inputs, two outputs, and some six streams (two video and four audio). It was not easy, but I finally got it working.
At least the video was being recorded at 1920x1080, so I just have to crop and not scale, but because cropping requires the video be re-encoded, for best quality I have to do it at the same time as every other filter is applied. If I didn't, there would be some loss of quality. Took me quite a while to finally get the command logic right, but I did and the videos are being processed now. It's fixed for the future, so I don't have to worry about doing this again, unless I forget with a different game, and I hope I don't. This is a pain.

Haven't Forgotten

I know it's been a while since I posted anything, but I've been busy and slightly forgetful. Not forgetful like I forgot to do it completely, but that when I remembered there wasn't the time to post anything. I've been gone, I've been sick, and I've been busy. One of the things I've been busy with though has been finishing FEAR for The Body on Games channel. Took longer than I would have liked, but I got it done. Here are a couple links:
FEAR - Highlights
FEAR

E3 2016 Came and Went

I only actually watched the briefings on Monday, which was Microsoft, Ubisoft, the PC Gaming Show, and Sony. The PC Gaming Show was not that great in my opinion, because it felt to me at times like it was supposed to be something really hype-ie, but was more of a talk show, and that place in the middle it occupied was not ideal. Ubisoft was interesting to watch, but seriously, it would have been nice if we saw, clearly Just Dance 2017 up on the screen at the beginning. If you watched it, you know what I mean.
Sony... I am confused when I see headlines of different people praising Sony as having the best conference. It was not good, at all. It was practically all trailers, so everything could have just been put up on YouTube. The live orchestra was neat, but what it was playing did not seem to tie into anything of the presentation. Some of the stuff that was shown was not particularly impressive or well done either. A VR trailer for Final Fantasy XV where the first half of it is just the normal gameplay, and then we get a VR reveal within it. If this were the first trailer of the VR content, and we did not know the VR stuff was coming, it would have been good, but that was not the case at all. Seriously, there was no real, press conference type substance to the Sony press conference.
Microsoft, however, that felt like a press conference. There were trailers, yes, but also live gameplay, that was not just someone on the corner of the stage playing, announcements in video, and announcements from the stage. You could not have just put the content up on YouTube and have it be the same, because part of the content, the substance was live. The bulk of Sony was trailers, or gameplay that was not obviously gameplay ie. it could have easily been pre-recorded and no one would have cared.

How I Choose to Remember Today

Whenever a significant event occurs, especially a tragedy such as what happened in the early hours of today, there are many images that can and will be used to capture it. The one I choose for today is not of any of the horror that occurred, but the love and caring that occurred after it. The lines of people stretching out from the blood banks around Orlando and the second call, not for more blood donations, but for support for those still waiting, in the Florida heat, for hours, to give blood.
We cannot and should not forget the carnage and the tragedy, but we should not neglect, instead we should celebrate those who did not retreat into safe homes, but went forward to help. That is part of our strength and terrorism and murder will not overcome it.

He Will Be Missed

There are a number of things that I could talk about, but the most important one is very easy to see.
While it is a great loss to the world that Muhammad Ali has died, the rewards we all received from his life are far greater. He will be missed that we could not have more of his time, but as much as we want that extra moment, we should all and will all cherish what time we had.

New Project

Last week I mentioned that I was doing something, but did not say what it was. The next day is when I finally made it all public, and I'm sharing it now.
However long ago (I honestly don't remember when, but I might be able to find out) I had the idea to play video games and monitor things like my pulse, to see any cause and effect. That idea itself is not new, as researchers have been doing things like that for years now, but I'm not sure how many did the monitoring in real time, and I am not aware of anyone actually burning the data into gameplay video.
And so, The Body on Games was conceived of and started. I also started a new blog to go with it, but there is not much up there at the moment. Thinking I will put up a piece of good news after I publish this. I don't know and kind of doubt anyone will read that blog, but why not post to it anyway. Can't hurt.
Anyway, it is a fun project, for me at least, and I am looking forward to continuing it.

Something is Coming

Since the beginning of May, I have been working on a project that should go live tomorrow or Tuesday. It's something I had the idea for long ago, but finally decided to do, and I really hope it goes well. Don't want to spoil it just yet though, but that time is coming quickly.

So Excited for October

I am so excited for October, which is obvious from the title of this post. The reason is because Civilization VI is releasing then! I have spent hundreds of hours in Civ V so I am naturally interested in seeing the next in the series come out. The new features and changes that have been announced sound interesting and I am looking forward to seeing them. It will also be interesting to see what API it uses. Civilization: Beyond Earth is one of the few titles that supported AMD's Mantle API, which is what led to the development of the low-level APIs DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Will we see this game use Vulkan? (I say Vulkan because it works on Windows and Mac.) I haven't heard if that is the case, but I'm sure we will find out in the coming months.

Saw Captain America: Civil War

I am going to do my best to avoid spoilers here, because I know I would not want any of it spoiled for me, but I do still want to say a few things. First off, I did enjoy this film. I still think Winter Soldier is the better movie, but surpassing that will be hard to do, so it isn't like this is a negative. Despite the number of heroes in it, and introducing some heroes for the first time in the MCU, it remains a Captain America movie, while also serving those new characters very well. Ant-Man could maybe have been better, and I only say that because I felt that the character was not as well introduced as he could have been, within this movie. Basically you would be well-served to have seen the Ant-Man movie prior to seeing this, so the humor to the character will seem more appropriate, in my opinion of course.
Good film and I am definitely looking forward to the impacts it has on the MCU.

Took A While, But I Got It Working

This past week, I spent a number of hours trying to do one thing that I knew could be done, and could have a positive result, but was somewhat frustrating to finally get right. I rebuilt my resume, which I first made and have been maintaining in Microsoft Word for years, in LaTeX.
For those who do not know, LaTeX is a fairly powerful typesetting software that is used for a number of things, such as putting together scientific documents and other published item. The reason is because it is quite flexible and supports a great number of features, characters, and symbols. Of course I was not using many symbols in my resume, but I wanted to try building it LaTeX because I knew it would allow for a more modular design. So, instead of needing to copy and paste experiences in different orders, depending on the position I am applying for, I can just move a couple lines, recompile the document, and I'm done. Also some formatting tricks, like having text split between two, uneven columns can be done automatically by LaTeX, which I have never found a way of doing in Word. Now some things I could not get it to do, but still, it turned out pretty well, and should allow me to do some things more easily. At least it will be easier now that I have it built.

I also took the time to create some modular files I can use and set up some other things for any stories I might release in the future. The formatting is different enough from Word that they end up several pages shorter, but hey, it works and can be read, so I'm not complaining. While I was trying to replicate some of the formatting I was complaining, but I got it done, and it felt good.

Quick Comments on Battleborn

I want to quickly make some comments about Battleborn, an upcoming game from Borderlands-franchise developer Gearbox Software. Battleborn has been holding an open beta this weekend, and I played some in it. Personally, I have not been impressed by it. Part of this is because I feel like I am still in the Borderlands universe with the writing. I do enjoy the Borderlands games, but this is a new IP, so I was really hoping for something appreciably different and not the same kind of humor.
The other, more important issue, is that it has not really felt to me like the characters have much punch to them. I never really felt like the hero, one of the most powerful fighters on the field, but not so much that I can't lose. Striking that balance can be quite challenging, but is so worth striving for, because it keeps the average gameplay rewarding for the player, by your character's effectiveness.
Something else, I did a versus match and the matchmaking was definitely off. The highest level player on my team was level 8. The other team had a level 45, one or two level 30s, and naturally we lost. Should probably never have been in such a match, because such a match should not have been made (or at least the players juggled between the teams to balance out).

About the Weather

When I awoke today, I found a few inches of snow covering the ground that was not there the day before. While some are set to make a big deal out of this, I honestly laugh at it as I put on my warm coat. The reason I laugh is because I can see the balance in it. We had a mild Winter where I live, so it balances out that we have an intermittently cold and snowy beginning to Spring. It might be unusual, but wouldn't it be more unusual if things did not balance out in the end? I would think so.

Of Pots and Kettles (but not Easter)

First, I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Easter, if you celebrate it, and an enjoyable weekend if you do not. Now for the thing I actually want to mention here.

This past week, Netflix, one of the companies that pushed so hard for the FCC to take control of Internet access for the US in the name of Net Neutrality (which is actually counter to any one entity controlling access to the Internet, but that's not the point today) and make rules so-called fast lanes and discriminate throttling have admitted they have been throttling their own customers. For years. If you had an AT&T or Verizon connection when you tried to stream something from Netflix, the stream would be throttled down. Of course Netflix is just thinking of its paying customers, trying to help them from exceeding data caps, unlike those ISPs that were trying to keep network congestion down for their paying customers. Netflix was thinking of its customers so much that it neglected to tell any of them they were getting impaired service, or AT&T and Verizon.

Some would take an opportunity like this to say that one should not trust any companies, but I vehemently disagree. You can indeed trust companies, to do what is best for them. The question is what the company's operating philosophy is. Every decision a company makes will be to increase revenue and/or decrease costs, but there are many ways this can be achieved, and it is the philosophy that determines which choice is made.
Remember that; you can trust that the best decision is always being made. Just wonder about why that decision is considered the best.

The Final Week

This is the final week of Lent, for all of those who celebrate the coming of Easter this way, and I hope everyone's resolutions for this season are going well. I did not really have one until about halfway through. It was to finish a project I've been working on for months now, but sadly I had some unfortunate business to take care of last week that prevented me from working on the project. I might be able to finish it this week, but I'm not sure. The end is in sight though! At least for the first phase. Subsequent phases may take even longer. Last time I completed a project like this (I keep saying that because I curiously do not want to say what it is I'm doing, and I don't know why) the first phase took just over a month and what followed took over a year. I certainly hope it won't take that long this time, but we will see.

Things are Starting!

I know several games have already come out this year, but it seems like the season has just started. Last week we saw Far Cry Primal release (which I am currently playing and enjoying) and this week The Division launches, as does the first of the Just Cause 3 expansions, for those who purchased the season pass already. Okay, the DLC maybe is not that exciting, but it is a fun game, and this looks to add more ways to add fun (rocket-firing jetpack with machine gun), but still good stuff is going on now. Also we saw Masters of Orion release in early access for everyone to purchase and play, saw No Man's Sky get a release date and price and I'm sure plenty more that I am not thinking of just now.
This is looking to be a good year for games.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Because it could be taken as a negative comment, I will refrain from explaining why this old phrase has returned to mind for me lately. All I really want to say is that it is still true, which makes it valuable to remember. You do not necessarily need a background in math to enjoy it though, because if you can keep it in mind when someone is showing you processed numbers, you can learn to instinctively question them. As I do have a background in math I can actively question them and know why some statistics are poorly representing facts. It's a handy ability to have, though it can also be hard because of some of the questions that naturally come with it, concerning trustworthiness.

What a Weekend!

This has not been the most interesting year for games so far, at least for me, but that is changing very soon and this weekend has been showing that off. We have had both The Division and Hitman in open betas, though the Hitman beta did require you pre-purchase the game to get in. Regardless, that is two open betas for two games that are releasing in just weeks along with many other titles to be excited for.
Besides those two we are also getting Far Cry Primal very soon, which I am looking forward to. I have played Far Cry 2, 3, Blood Dragon, and 4, though I should probably admit I did not complete Far Cry 2. It just did not attract me that much, but the others were definitely a lot of fun, which is why I have hopes for this next one. So two of these upcoming titles are part of long respected franchises and the other is just very interesting, is showing good promise (in my opinion at least), and could start another franchise. Even if it doesn't, The Division's Snowdrop engine is definitely going to be fun to watch as its use grows within Ubisoft. Both betas I have played it in have shown it to be a well optimized game with quite good graphics and capabilities, so I do hope we see it used more, assuming what we have seen so far is representative of the whole-game experience. It is possible there are trouble spots, but I hope not and that would be surprising, based on what I have seen so far.
Anyway, this is looking like it will be a good year for games. New titles releasing, modern VR technologies reaching consumers, and new hardware is coming too. Should be good and I am looking forward to it all.

It's Just the Day Before the Fifteeth

Yeah, I don't really care that it's Valentines Day, and I also don't have anyone in my life that cares either. Those two points may be related, but seriously, it is a pretty silly day to celebrate. Just think about it; the days one expects to celebrate with a significant other are what, anniversaries and birthdays. These days are genuinely special to you or them, so it makes sense to celebrate them together with things like flowers, candy, etc. because they are your days. Valentines Day is everyone's day; it isn't special, so doing something on it is not special. Doing something on a random day because you want to celebrate each other is special. (And buying up the discounted candy after Valentines Day is smart.)

I Don't Care...

about the snow storm hitting the East Coast. Why? Because I do not live on the East Coast for one, and I've experienced plenty of snowstorms in the past. It isn't like it came as a surprise and no one had time to prepare. Bundle up and do what you have to do to keep warm and safe.
Really the reason this storm has annoyed as it has is because everyone on the news cannot stop talking about it, just because it's the East Coast with New York and Washington DC. If a comparable snowstorm hit the middle of Kansas, would it be covered like this? Doubt it. Montana? No, probably not. Why? Because too many people think the world revolves around a few select cities, so the local or regional news for them has to be reported everywhere. Makes me glad I'm a gamer and have plenty of other distractions, because I can turn off the news and do something better with my time.
Be safe everyone, but please, just because the snow is falling on you doesn't mean we all have to be buried in it.

Quite a Game

I am not one who follows much in the way of sports, but I am definitely a Packers fan, and I just have to say that it was a very fun game to watch last night. Sure it was not much fun to lose in the end, but it was still a lot of fun to watch and see it all happen, from amazing catches and drives, to the weirdest start to Overtime ever.
A lose like that I am willing to take because it is with respect. We tried hard and proved ourselves, just coming up a bit short in the end. Nothing to be embarrassed about with that and it leaves me looking forward to next season.

Did I Miss It?

We've made it through another CES and I am left wondering what I missed. I mean I know some neat stuff was shown off, but nothing got me especially excited. Maybe I am just changing, but I honestly did not have a wow moment with all of the stuff I saw talked about. Maybe I missed it or maybe I just knew enough of what to expect to not be surprised. I knew VR would have a sizable presence, and nothing there was really surprising, and while it is cool to see OLED displays becoming more common, I know enough about the technology to know that has been coming for years.
Did I miss something? Probably. I'm sure I'll have a chance to see it again though.

Happy New Year

It's a new year and hopefully 2016 will be an improvement over 2015. It wasn't a bad year for me, but there are definitely some changes I would like to see. Unfortunately they're changes I can only influence and not make happen, but hey, that's life. Best to just keep going, and hope it doesn't take long to learn to write 2016 instead of 2015.