I also do a lot of walking. In college I kept in shape because my my apartment was 2 miles away from the school, and the trip was mostly uphill. Doing that back-and-forth every day (plus my general lack of available food) kept me reasonably fit.
For years after that I lived in an area that was not walking friendly. I put on a lot of weight. Where I live now is a lot better though. It's nice to be walking again.
When you've got a free night, you've gotta rock hard. Drive fast, take chances, or play video games.
By natural inclination, I'm a night owl. But I'm a lot more productive when I wake up early, so I aim for a 12-6 sleep schedule. I don't always succeed, but that's my happy medium.
@kilovh and I had a conversation the other day:
kilovh: I kind of want to try podcasting
LS The Less Than Great: Me too.
kilovh: Wanna do a duo? I could be a good straight man
LS The Less Than Great: Yes.
kilovh: ok it's settled
Then we made this:
I never really got to know Sheena very well. As I recall, she was kind of a drama lama. But she was Ashleigh's oldest online friend or something like that.
The two of them worked together on some online role-plays in the pre-TSR days. "Princess Zelda's Role Playing Game," or "PZRPG" was a big deal for them. Later, after TSR6 went down for about a year/year and a half, I found out that a bunch of the gang were hanging out on Sheena's forum, which was focused on PZRPG II. Then when TSR 7 came out we all abandoned it.
I also have a copy of Soul Caliber 2, but for the PS2. Several of my friends got mad at me for not getting the GC version for Link.
I'm also really bad at fighting games.
So, we've all probably played "one-word story" games, or "write a story one sentence at a time." I've generally found them to be novelties that are more annoying than entertaining. So here's an experiment: lets write a communal story in indeterminately sized chunks. Try to aim for between one paragraph, and 100 words.
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"Ne-- --lp. --'ve r-n agr----." came the voice over the ship-to-shore radio. Darren looked at the speaker incredulously, as if he'd somehow catch it smirking at its dumb joke.
"Say again, Reprieve?"
"-- need so-- --sistance --re. We ra- -ground!"
"Reprieve, I read your current coordinates as 35.138497 by -40.452347. There's no land around you for miles." A crackling static silence followed. When the voice from the Reprieve came again, its annoyance was obvious even through the distortion.
"Sure ar- - -ot of tre-- -nd dirt --neath --- keel i- ---- isn'- -and. --- -ucking ge- ---eone out he-- ---eady."
So midnight for me is 3am for Inhaling, and 5pm (the next day) for you guys.
If we bump that back to 7pm for me, that's 10pm for Inhaling, and 1pm (the next day) for you guys. That seems doable, right?
By the way, what city do you and Kaynil live in?
And google hangouts is good at managing voice chat with multiple people.
Perhaps the best place to start would be to figure out which time zones we're in? I'm PST, which is -8 GMT. The Aussies would be ~13-14 hours ahead of me, I think?
I really didn't like it. It was way too easy to fall off of it to your death. The specific stars weren't very fun to get. But I think the worst part is how hard it was to move around the environment. Everything was such a hassle.
I dunno. I was really into that game. I very much wanted to give the expert sphere grid a try.
I'm sure there are businesses that failed faster, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a local record at least. =P
So "Paisano" doesn't mean "Citizen?"
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word "Country" only started to refer to the rural, non-city parts of a nation in the mid 1500s. A cursory google does not reveal the source of thatsplit.
They just get everything right. The music is amazing, the story is amazing, the gameplay is amazing. The basic premise is that you're essentially a serial killer. Each level begins outside of a building, and your job is to kill everyone inside of the building.
If they kill you, you hit R, and you're instantly outside the building ready to go in again. The game is crazy fast-paced. It's actually designed to make you get angry and sloppy. It's beautiful.
Here's the review I wrote for Hotline Miami 2, which has a lot more details:
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There were times while I was playing this when I literally felt like I was on drugs. I don't mean that the game is super trippy (it is), and I don't mean it's an intense experience (it is). What I mean is that I had a physical reaction to playing this game that felt like some kind of drug I'd never tried before. I was outwardly calm, had no emotional affect, but on the inside I was on fire with some kind of adrenaline rush unlike any I've ever had before. But at the same time I was completely calm. I kept oscillating between them in my mind as I played. "Am I okay? Oh my god my brain is exploding. No I'm okay, this is weird. What's going on. HOLY SHIT MY HEART IS GOING TO FLY OUT OF MY CHEST. This is a really weird thing for a video game to do to me."
I can break down into words why this game is good, and I will. But I can't give the game any higher recommendation than "it literally made me feel like I was on some kind of drug."
Okay, so, here's the rundown.
If you played hotline Miami one (which you ABSOLUTELY should.) you understand the basics of this game. It's a top-down bloodbath. You walk into a house, there are people in the house. You kill all of the people. Blood is everywhere. Sometimes you die. You hit the R button. Instantly you're trying again. And again. And again. The whole thing is so fast and twitchy. The game actually tries to make you go just as crazy as your character is supposed to be. The game WANTS you to run into rooms throwing fists and bullets randomly until for some reason it works. It's a twitchy, maddening experience. A successful run through a level can be completed in about 2 minutes. But each level will take you about 20-30 to get through without being shot in the face by a Russian mobster or a street hoodlum or a cop or whatever.
Mechanically, very little has changed, save for a few things being tightened up. Which is good. The first game was one of the greatest produced in the current renaissance of Indie gaming. But, if I may be so bold, I believe the sequel surpasses the original.
It took me 13 hours of play, which I squeezed into 3 days, to beat the game. I didn't want the game to stop, but at the same time I kept thinking "I MUST be near the end by now. There's no way the game could keep going." And yet it goes on, and on, until suddenly it doesn't and you're just not ready for the rush to be over.
After the fucked up, drug-addled story told by the first game, a person could be forgiven for thinking that they knew what to expect here. But everything is on its head. There are more protagonists in this game than I was able to count. The game switches between them rapidly, and between segments in the storyline like it's fucking Pulp Fiction. Now and then you're a mental case getting phone calls telling you to kill people, just like in the first game. But you also fall between being a soldier in a fictitious Cold War brush conflict, a cop, a group of teenagers who just want a bit of the ol' Ultra Violence, and a journalist whose just trying to piece the whole thing together. Nothing that's happening to you ever makes any sense until you have a chance to look back on it with 3 gameplay hours of hindsight.
The soundtrack to this game is going to be my favorite album for awhile. I don't have the kind of vocabulary a person needs to really describe music. But you will NEVER mistake this game's music for anything else. It's both incredibly distinct and unlike anything you've ever heard before, but also evocative of the mid-80s early-90s, when the game is set.
The visuals cross over from being "graphics" to being "art." Pixel art games are a bit of a fad to be sure, but you can always tell the difference between people who are just trying to jump on a bandwagon, and people who have a legitimate passion for the visual medium of pixels. Again, my vocabulary for describing visual art is insufficient. But most games simply don't pack this much visual information into each individual pixel. And the colors are so bright and vibrant. It's glorious.
Heads up if you do play it: the game can be used with controllers, but WASD and a mouse really is the way to go here.
Play this game.
Yeah, it's a bummer for everyone involved. Most of all for him, but certainly for the 6~8 employees who found a new job only to lose it less than a week later. But like I said in another thread, I've got a lead on another pretty good job. I'm hopeful that I can pull things together quickly. =D
Yeah, for sure. The job I'm shooting at is just 20 hours a week. Much better than the 40 hours I worked at Koolance. (50 if you include lunch. Probably close to 60 if you include travel time.)
Geeze mang, that's rough. I mean, on the one hand, violence is pretty much never justified. So I'd wager you probably crossed a line there. But there's basically no good reason for a parent to ever kick a 14 year old out of the house.
Libby Anne's blog in general is a pretty great resource. Though it's a blog written by an adult, who discusses things from an adult perspective. Her best writing is usually about how she's raising her children differently than the way her parents raised her. She might not be the best resource for someone who is still in the trenches dealing with their parents on a day-to-day basis.
There's a subreddit called /r/RaisedByNarcissists that I have found useful. It's aimed at people whose parents probably have NPD. I've come to believe that my parents probably don't, but it has been a valuable resource to me none the less.
I need to update both my work log, and my guideline journal.
Also, I think I've got a good chance at getting a job that will be even better for me than the Arcade job was. Less fun, but more hours + higher pay.
