The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I keep falling asleep.

It normally happens when I sit down at my desk. I’ll turn on a youtube video or a let’s play or something, and then I’ll just dose off. I’ll keep snapping back awake, because I’m not supposed to be sleeping, but I can’t seem to help it. Eventually, this leads to be, angrily, going to bed. I then sleep, and wake up the next day. But I’m still tired.

I guess I haven’t been getting enough sleep? But I feel like I’ve been sleeping about as much as I normally do. Maybe it’s just the emotional exhaustion. I really have been running a million miles an hour, emotionally and physically. I’ve been doing so much. I’m ridiculous like that.

I felt like it really all came to a head the other day. I was playing Magic with everyone, and I was bringing by Blue/Green deck. This deck has counterspells, including my beloved Mystic Snake. I literally couldn’t focus on the game enough to be able to counter anything. I couldn’t follow it. I kept drifting off. It kind of embarrassed me.

I need a break, but I don’t think I’m going to get one. The best I can do is try to keep knocking things out, and keep making progress. At the end of the tunnel, I might be able to relax.

Also, napping. I need to nap more aggressively.
Eh, I’ll figure something out, right? Probably? I mean, sleep is just another thing to schedule, right? I can do that, can’t I?
Sure I can.

Apparently, Twitter made some sort of weird change. All of the sudden, WordPress plugins couldn’t post things to twitter because they weren’t a “registered application.” This is made more ridiculous by the fact that the website itself needed to be registered as an application, not just the plugin, so the people making the plugins that did such things couldn’t actually fix the problem. It was fantastically annoying.

I mean, I kind of understand why Twitter is doing that. You don’t want a bunch of random gunk messing up the system, so you make it so anything that posts to twitter has to register, so you can shut it off quickly if it’s doing nothing but generating waves of spam. I get it. But that’s just a really annoying bit of hoop to have to jump through, as a little person who just enjoys writing a stupid blog, and who has been having success sharing said blogs on twitter. (Seriously, people asked me what was up when it stopped posting. People followed my blogs! It was scary!)

Anyway, I think I’ve got it fixed now, but I thought I’d just write about what was going on, seeing as when I Googled for information about this, I had a really hard time learning about the problem. This has to be a really wide-spread issue. I’m kind of surprised that more people haven’t been talking about it. Like, you’d think that blogs would pick up on the issues being caused. Then again, I guess, in the big scheme of things, this is really nothing at all. It’s not like I couldn’t still write my bloegs and whatnot. Still, people raise huge-fucking shitstorms over much less. I expected to find people complaining with attached solutions easily, and I didn’t.

But yeah, so that’s what was going on. Hopefully it’s working again now. I got registered and got a more robust plugin, so things should be rocking and rolling. I’ve continued to post to the blog every day, even when the plugin was down, so if you’ve missed and really want to see what I have to say for some reason, feel free to scroll down.

And thanks for reading anyway. That’s pretty neat of you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Time Management.

Mostly in the context of adding way, way more to do to my schedule, and if I can pull it off.

Honestly, I think I’m pretty good with time management. I can normally fairly safely estimate the amount of time a task will take me to complete, and slot it in in a time where I know I will get it done. I understand how I work, and when I will be reluctant to work, and I can fit things in.

However, the one thing I can’t stand organizing and scheduling is my free time.

I hate having to parcel off my free time. I hate going “Here is the hour in which I will do a vidjeo gam.” I really dislike that. It turns the very act of relaxing into work, and it frustrates me. I know it sometimes frustrates Brer when I hate him constantly asking me when we can schedule viewings of shows we’re trying to watch together. It just makes watching it seem like more work.

All this potential stuff that I could add to my plate… all of it would start to require such strict scheduling of my time, in order to get my schoolwork done, that I feel like all my free time, not just some of it, would start to fall under scheduling concerns. Frankly, it scares me, because it makes me feel like I’ll never have time to unwind. I’m a creature of habit, but when I sit down to relax, I don’t want to feel forced into doing one thing or another. I want to be able to let my whims roam free for the first time that day. That’s what relaxes me. Just letting me do what I want, without worrying about deadlines or scheduling. At least for awhile.

I work best when I can set a cutoff time, where all the rest of my time that day is mine. That’s when I work best. I’ll have so much less opportunity to do that if I take this up. But it’s also a good opportunity. Arg.

I guess this is growing up. If you want to have cake AND eat cake, you have to get everything in gear to make it happen. I know I can make it happen. The question is more… will I be happy making it happen? That’s what I’m wondering. I don’t know the answer.

But I’ll try, and we’ll see.

I had heard many a thing about the indie game VVVVVV when it launched off of the developers website. It got some positive press! What wasn’t all that positive was the price. While I understand how hard, time consuming, and costly it is to develop a game like this, 15 bucks was a hard sell. I couldn’t make myself do it.

Thankfully, it recently showed up on Steam for 5 bucks. Now there’s something I can get behind! I snatched it right up.

VVVVVV’s claim to fame is that it looks like an old Atari game or something. The graphics are pixelized, but in a non-standard way. It looks more like one of those old computers than, say, an NES, the standard sprite style for these kinds of demakes. That’s a nice change of pace.

Of course, the challenge is pretty equal to those old games as well.

VVVVVV is really hard in that old school, memorize and do this the right way kind of way. Of course, it has nods to modern-ness in that there are checkpoints basically everywhere, so every time you die you only lose a tiny bit of progress. However, if you suck like me, You’ll die a lot. When I beat the game, I had something like 1180 deaths. That’s a lot of deaths! Especially considering I had about 3 hours on the game clock when I finished it.

Still, besides the last few rooms, which made me so angry I almost wanted to stop, the game is really well balanced. All you can do is reverse gravity, but the game takes that in every direction it can without getting too complicated, and it’s quite cool. It’s always throwing something new at you, all the way up to the very end. Once it runs out of new, novel ideas, it stops. I can appreciate that. It’s not a big game, but it’s a smart little game that uses what it has.

There’s also a plot. Kind of. It’s… weird. It’s kind of cute, and obviously not the focus, but someone took the time to attempt to give the crew of the space ship some personality for who knows what reason. I guess, in a way, it is a throwback to storytelling of those old games. It’s really minimal, but there.

In any case, I’m glad I played the game. It’s nothing fantastic, but I feel like I got my five bucks worth. If it’s interesting to you at all, pick it up and go at it. It’s solid stuff. A good indie game. Always nice to see good ones of those.

On Friday, we just picked up and went to Lambert’s. Just, you know, for the hell of it. But that’s not all. We also played some Race for the Galaxy. Upon flipping randomly through the rulebook, I stumbled upon a “Draft” variant I hadn’t heard of. It sounded fantastic, so we tried it. It really ended up changing the game in an interesting way.

Basically, we dealt out starting worlds, as per usual, then separated the rest of the deck into 9 card “draft packs.” We passed them around, drafting them like Magic cards. Once we’ve drafted the whole deck, we all had small, individual decks with which to draw all our cards from. Then we played the game.

It worked really well.

Basically, it removed a large chunk of the randomness from actually playing the game. For example, I had drafted mostly rebel cards, so I knew I was attempting to set up a victory via Rebel military, and thus evaluated the cards I drew differently. Jonathan, on the other had, had gone for Galactic Federation all out, and was trying to make developing work for him. It was much more like a game of Magic, where you had picked your strategy beforehand and was just trying to pull it off, as opposed to doing the best with what you draw. It kept the game the same, but changed it a lot.

Of course, one of the benefits of Race is that it’s a fairly fast game to play, once you figure it out. The drafting added a long, long time onto the gameplay. I had first surmised that you might negate that by playing multiple games with the same deck, but I kind of went back on that after our second game. If you hadn’t done well drafting, you just had no chance. Even if the person who one the first game got a bad draw, someone else probably would get a better one who wouldn’t be you. It didn’t seem worth it with so many people at the table. But eh, maybe everyone else disagreed with me.

I don’t think this will undo normal Race play for our group, but it is a really, really neat way to switch it up, especially if the goal of the night is a night of Race, as opposed to one quick game before bed, which it often is in our case. If you own the game and a few expansions, give it a try.

Blur is a really strange game.

I’m sure it’s been talked about before, but it’s hitting a weird middle ground in the racing space. It’s got all these power ups and car explosions and so on in the game, attempting to make it feel very arcade-y. At the same time, it’s full of real cars and it requires actual skill to drive, a lot more than most arcade-y racers I’m used to.

Seriously, it takes some serious skill to just turn in this game. I was having to pick cars with high handling just to get around turns, and even then I still hit the walls of the turns most of the time. I’m simply not used to driving games without a dedicated, unrealistic “drift” button. Without being able to “Power Slide” I just can’t maneuver on more complex courses. It’s not full-on sim, but it’s obviously trying to appeal to people who are at least partially in that crowd.

The power ups, though, are really smartly executed. I love their system. You can hold 3 power ups at a time, and can switch between them, toss them, and sort them easily as you drive through the course. Most power ups have two uses, too. For example, a Barge sends out a wave of energy in an AoE attack around your car, knocking other cars away. However, you can also employ it to take down projectiles that may be coming for you. It’s just really smart, and being able to hold three and pick which one you use at any time makes you be able to employ strategies like that, instead of just feeling screwed by the luck of the draw like in Mario Kart. Of course, there’s no luck element to power ups in the game either: specific powers are in specific places on the course. Once you learn the track, you can plan a route that gives you what you need at any time. It’s nice.

I played multiplayer for awhile with Cara and Cole, and it was really a blast. The Motor Mash “battle mode” is fantastic, and constantly entertaining, thanks to the very smart design of the power ups. Even the races get exciting and frantic when you have additional human players bitching about the constantly flying power ups and such on the course. There was also a lot of neat social features in the game. For example, I could pick a rival from the people from my friends list to compare all my scores to. Multiplayer is really what the game is designed for, and it’s fantastic.
The single player is almost an afterthought, and it’s nearly as well-thought out. I mean, it’s fine. There are a variety of challenges to go through. However, even on easy, the other drivers are pretty damn good. I was starting to have trouble in the races in the 3 area or so. That kind of kills any want of me to play the single player. Maybe if I could turn, it wouldn’t be an issue. Who knows.

But yeah, Blur is strange, but well-designed. I have no idea if it found it’s audience, but there has to be people out there who would be very, very pleased with this game. I hope they found it.

You can tell I’m stressed because I’m standing up for myself.

Or at least being very clear about it.

Allow me to offer some examples.

A student who has shown up about 35 minutes late for class every time so far e-mails me asking me about assignments he’d know about if he’d actually show up. Instead of just ignoring this, as I normally would, I said, though in a polite way, that if he’s show up to class he’d already know this.

Similarly, once at Kohl’s, I left a passive-aggressive note telling people to actually pay attention and put toppers away in the right spot so I don’t have to sort them, as well as standing up for how ridiculous some of the accusations against my team are. Anger was the basis for this.

I’m just tired of being pushed around. I’m still a professional. I’m not going to break down. But shit, something in my life has to give somewhere. Even if it is just little things like scolding these little transgressions. Something needs to go my fucking way.
I mean, things are. I continue to have the BEST FUCKING FRIENDS AND SIGNIFICANT OTHERS I could ever ask for. You all help me get through the day, and you’re all completely, without restraint, awesome. Still, I feel bad for leaning on you constantly. I’ve had to. I shouldn’t. Something has to give so I can stand on my own.

Maybe this is the prelude to bigger things. Maybe once actually being proactive and working to make myself happy works, I’ll finally finish off all the stupid bullshit standing in the way of my happiness. Eh, even if it doesn’t work, I’ll go that way. Of course I will.

Of course I will.

Until then, though, don’t like… throw cans in the trash can. They don’t go there. Little things. You know?

Hey, guess what! It’s time for a blowoff post where I point you at someone else’s content you should watch!

Okay, it’s only kind of shirking my duties that only I think I have, I suppose. But hey, people make better stuff than me, You should go enjoy it.

Like, say, this Dead to Rights video LP. It is completely excellent and entertaining. Jack Slate is one amazing individual who knows how to shoot a guy with a gun.

I think it’s ironic that watching this LP made me put the new relaunch of the series, Dead to Rights: Retribution, really high on my Gamefly queue. Just saying. Nobody was saying that game was great or anything, but now I really want to try it! Plus, it has ninja dog stealth sections, apparently.

Anyway, watch that. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Come back tomorrow, where I will probably have written some stupid bullshit for you to read. Huzzah!

Applebee’s removed their burger from their 2 for 20 menu. I honestly don’t understand why. One would think the burger would be one of the cheapest things they could serve on that menu, which would mean they’d jump for joy when I ordered it. But no, it was gone, so I had to think fast on what I was going to order. I really wanted fries, so I stayed away from the good-looking pastas. I wanted to be adventurous.

So I ordered the Riblets.

I love ribs. I love ribs a lot. I figured, how bad could they be? But they were so bad. So bad.

One of the reasons ribs are awesome is because they’re sort of… self-contained. They have grips on the sides, and you clean the bone off, and then you grab another. All the meat is easily accessible without any issues or any silverware. Riblets are apparently the exact opposite of this. They’re completely coated in BBQ sauce so that you get completely and utterly messy no matter what you do. Inside the riblet, the bones are hiding, so you can’t see them half the time, and they’re so tiny that it’s incredibly hard to get the meat out from around them to eat. It is basically the anti-rib. Not to mention it soaked the fries I wanted so badly with BBQ sauce that I couldn’t enjoy them either. I felt messy constantly, and it felt like more work than it takes to eat Crab, and I love crab. It was just an overall bad experience.

Does this mean I’m back out of love with Applebee’s? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. At the very least, I’m not making that horrible mistake again. Ugh. What was the person who put that dish together thinking?

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is really, really good. Essner and I basically played through it in two very long sessions. We probably put, at the very least, close to 8 hours in on it. It was fun for the whole time.

It’s really good.

Now, I’m not someone who has ever really even played a Tomb Raider game. I certainly don’t have any positive feelings for Ms. Croft and her video game outings. But seriously, Guardian of Light looks fantastic, plays fantastic, and is really smartly put together. If you have a friend to play with in co-op, there’s no way you won’t have a good time. No way.

Basically, the game is one part puzzle-platformer and one part Diablo-By-Way-Of-Twin-Stick-Shooter. You run through levels, shooting demons with a variety of weapons in a Twin-Stick shooter style. You also solve “Challenge Crypts” and complete various achievements to get artifacts and relics as loot, which you can use to somewhat customize your character. It’s not a huge level of customization, but it’s enough. I could focus on single-shot weapons that did a lot of damage to one person while Essner could focus on SMGs and Shotguns to clear out groups. Or we could both do a little of both. Essner equipped artifacts that upped his damage potential and remote mine radius (mostly so he could blow me up again and again), while I was a bit more well-rounded and always had a defense buff on. Again, it’s not a HUGE difference, but it’s enough to make you feel like you’re playing the game your way.

The puzzles in the game are perfect. They are exactly enough to make you think about what you’re doing, and have to discuss them with your teammate, but not hard enough to hold you up for any length of time, so you can get back to more dude-shooting. Plus, exactly when you think the game has thrown all its tricks at you, it comes up with something clever. Even in the last dungeon, I was going, “Woah, that was clever. I wouldn’t have though to use that this way.” It’s also, as I kind of mentioned earlier, a very meaty game. I was shocked there were more levels for the last 3 levels. You are certainly getting your money’s worth.

From what I’ve heard, they’ve done a good job making puzzles designed for two players work with one player. There are also special weapons you unlock through score challenges, which are kind of impossible to get when you’re splitting points with another player. Those weapons probably increase combat variety when you’re playing alone. But I never tried it alone, and never will. It’s designed from the ground up to be played with two people, and that’s how it should be played. Find someone you can trap on the couch for a few game sessions and play this game. It gets pretty well the highest recommendation I can summon.