OK, first let's recap my list for 2011.
- More will power in general, but especially when it comes to over-eating. Meh...I don't think I completely succeeded on this one, but I did do better so I'll call it a half win.
- Exercise more. I DEFINITELY won at this! I exercised the crap out of 2011.
- Save 5000$ for road trip with Beau or different continent with mom. Sadly, no. However, I did get myself completely out of credit card debt, so that's nothing to sneeze at.
- Get started on an AA degree. Nope!
- Call my family more. No. :(
- Sit on the couch less. Yes! Another win.
- Cook more / learn more complicated recipes. More during the first half of the year than the second, but I'm still calling it a win.
- Destroy NaNoWriMo 2011 and write more in general. Fuck yeah.
Overall, I am going to have to declare 2011 a smashing success! Here are my goals for 2012!
- At least one post a week on Pretty Gamer
- Finish at least 5 video games to include: Deus Ex Human Revolution, Bastion, Fallout New Vegas, Dead Island, and Darksiders
- Get back into painting
- Watch every episode of every Star Trek series
- Attend at least one YMCA weight lifting class
- Finish the tattoo on my back
- Reach 120 lbs and buy a convertible Power Wheels car
- ...Also buy a real car
Sunday, January 1
Tuesday, December 27
2012 free planner for printing
I shared my one from last year so I figured I'd share this years too. So far I have only done the 8.5x14 (legal sized) planner. It's formatted to be cut exactly in half and then if you keep the two halves separate it's pretty easy to put the pages together in the right order. Then I have mine comb bound, which you can get done at any Kinko's. In fact, I would recommend just popping one of these files on a USB drive and having it cut and put together at your local Kinko's / copy shop.
2012 Planner Word Doc - if you want to edit it before printing
If you don't feel like clicking the links (which go to shared Google Docs files so they're easy to preview) you can see below what the pages look like:
And don't forget to customize your cover!
I know that some people might scoff at my use of a paper planner in these times of smart phones and online calendars (I do still make liberal use of Google Calendar) but sometimes I just feel like writing things down. By the end of the year my planners tend to wind up looking more like scrap books, so it's super fun to look back at my notes and ticket stubs, etc.
I hope someone somewhere gets some use out of this!
Saturday, December 24
Brenna's Babble: Leaving GoDaddy
I'm sharing this link to Brenna's blog about switching your Blogger bought domain from GoDaddy. She includes important FAQs for the process. If you bought a domain name through Blogger, please consider switching!
Tuesday, December 20
awesome Gene Roddenberry quotes
It took me FOREVER to find these quotes on Tumblr when I needed them for reference, so I'm posting them to my Blogger which has a much better search!
Sunday, December 18
what I've been playin': Darksiders, Dead Island, Deus Ex
I haven't gotten very far in any of these games, so this is more a "first impressions" post. Darksiders I'm barely past the tutorial type areas into the meat of the game, Dead Island I think I'm still in Act 1, and I'm the farthest in Deus Ex having just killed the second boss.
Darksiders - This game is just plain fun. It's a Zelda game minus Princess Zelda and set in hell (well, hell on Earth, but still). The combat is pretty basic but I still had fun with my button mashing. Plus in order to beat some of the bigger baddies you have to time your button mashing with jumps and figure out where they're weak, so it still poses a challenge. The only downside of this game so far is that you can't play it with mouse and keyboard. Don't bother trying to refute that. If you are playing this game on mouse and keyboard you are doing it wrong. Go buy a USB game pad. The controls are very good, so even if you're not use to a game pad you shouldn't have issues.
Dead Island - I'm back and forth about this one. It's a fun game but I'm finding myself getting hung up on a lot of the details/mechanics. The worst one for me is the weapon fatigue. It feels like you can use a weapon for maybe 10-20 hits on zombies before it breaks and you have to use a new one. Plus, as pointed out in Zero Punctuation's hilarious review, you can just kick a zombie to death and not have to bother with weapons at all. There is an ability that let's you one hit kill curb stomp a zombie once you've knocked it down with the first kick to its gut. For the thugs you can just toss molotovs at them and wait for them to burn to death. Despite this, I've still been using weapons (mostly because I am prone to lighting myself on fire with molotovs) and it's fun until they die and I'm left trying to kill things with a tiny splinter of wood. Overall it's not a very hard game though, especially if you go with the health regeneration tank character to distract things from your knife expert stabby in the back partner. And despite how other reviews I've seen have marked this as a negative, I think it's hilarious that most of the characters in the game-including yourself in a couple iterations-are mostly drug addicted drunken assholes. It's a nice change from the regular zombie apocalypse assumption that the majority of people who would survive would be nice people.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - I have been having a lot of fun with this game! The story is pretty immersive and the characters are very well done. The combat is a hoot, especially since the game very clearly encourages you to sneak your way out of trouble but doesn't mind if you're a crazy person like me who says fuck sneaking and opens fire in a room full of guards. I like that there are multiple ways to get where you want to go and complete the various missions. Even though I've tended to take the exact same "shoot them in the head" approach to all my quests, I still appreciate the fact that I could have spared their lives or snuck in and hacked my way out of it.
Of course, that brings me to the major issue with the game that pretty much everyone who reviews it agrees on - the boss fights are stupid. Like, really stupid. In the entire rest of the game you have multiple choices and options, but for the boss fights you have to fight them in the one way the game tells you to fight them. Instead of having vents and back doors and multiple entrances, you're stuck in a small room with a boss that can break you in half in one hit and only one really dumb mechanic the game wants you to use to beat them. It's really, really disheartening to run into a boss fight after having a blast screwing around in the rest of the game and it does this game a great disservice. I think it's interesting too that most reviewers say something like "well I built a computer science sneaky dude for the rest of the game so that's why it's hard for the boss". That is extremely misleading since there is no other way to build your character! There are a billion options for stealth and hacking compared to a couple that might help you fly in guns blazing.
I would probably still recommend this game since I've had fun between boss fights, but whereas I might have recommended it to a non-gamer for a nice entry FPS on easy mode, I would no longer do that due to the idiotically out of scale boss encounters. For veteran FPSers though, it is worth picking up.
Darksiders - This game is just plain fun. It's a Zelda game minus Princess Zelda and set in hell (well, hell on Earth, but still). The combat is pretty basic but I still had fun with my button mashing. Plus in order to beat some of the bigger baddies you have to time your button mashing with jumps and figure out where they're weak, so it still poses a challenge. The only downside of this game so far is that you can't play it with mouse and keyboard. Don't bother trying to refute that. If you are playing this game on mouse and keyboard you are doing it wrong. Go buy a USB game pad. The controls are very good, so even if you're not use to a game pad you shouldn't have issues.
Dead Island - I'm back and forth about this one. It's a fun game but I'm finding myself getting hung up on a lot of the details/mechanics. The worst one for me is the weapon fatigue. It feels like you can use a weapon for maybe 10-20 hits on zombies before it breaks and you have to use a new one. Plus, as pointed out in Zero Punctuation's hilarious review, you can just kick a zombie to death and not have to bother with weapons at all. There is an ability that let's you one hit kill curb stomp a zombie once you've knocked it down with the first kick to its gut. For the thugs you can just toss molotovs at them and wait for them to burn to death. Despite this, I've still been using weapons (mostly because I am prone to lighting myself on fire with molotovs) and it's fun until they die and I'm left trying to kill things with a tiny splinter of wood. Overall it's not a very hard game though, especially if you go with the health regeneration tank character to distract things from your knife expert stabby in the back partner. And despite how other reviews I've seen have marked this as a negative, I think it's hilarious that most of the characters in the game-including yourself in a couple iterations-are mostly drug addicted drunken assholes. It's a nice change from the regular zombie apocalypse assumption that the majority of people who would survive would be nice people.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - I have been having a lot of fun with this game! The story is pretty immersive and the characters are very well done. The combat is a hoot, especially since the game very clearly encourages you to sneak your way out of trouble but doesn't mind if you're a crazy person like me who says fuck sneaking and opens fire in a room full of guards. I like that there are multiple ways to get where you want to go and complete the various missions. Even though I've tended to take the exact same "shoot them in the head" approach to all my quests, I still appreciate the fact that I could have spared their lives or snuck in and hacked my way out of it.
Of course, that brings me to the major issue with the game that pretty much everyone who reviews it agrees on - the boss fights are stupid. Like, really stupid. In the entire rest of the game you have multiple choices and options, but for the boss fights you have to fight them in the one way the game tells you to fight them. Instead of having vents and back doors and multiple entrances, you're stuck in a small room with a boss that can break you in half in one hit and only one really dumb mechanic the game wants you to use to beat them. It's really, really disheartening to run into a boss fight after having a blast screwing around in the rest of the game and it does this game a great disservice. I think it's interesting too that most reviewers say something like "well I built a computer science sneaky dude for the rest of the game so that's why it's hard for the boss". That is extremely misleading since there is no other way to build your character! There are a billion options for stealth and hacking compared to a couple that might help you fly in guns blazing.
I would probably still recommend this game since I've had fun between boss fights, but whereas I might have recommended it to a non-gamer for a nice entry FPS on easy mode, I would no longer do that due to the idiotically out of scale boss encounters. For veteran FPSers though, it is worth picking up.
Thursday, December 15
The Captains = awesome Star Trek documentary on Netflix Instant Watch
If you are a Star Trek fan (or really just interested it what it's like to be an actor) I highly recommend watching "The Captains". It is a documentary that William Shatner produced, wrote, directed, etc. about the captains of every Star Trek iteration to date. The movie is beautifully done and Shatner does an amazing job of mixing a light fun attitude with serious questions and issues surrounding being not only on Star Trek itself but being someone who the crew and audience constantly looked to. Parts of it are pretty strange but even then I enjoyed it. He goes into some pretty deep questions and I'm not sure he always gets the kinds of answers he's looking for, but he has such a fantastic chemistry with everyone that it's a pleasure to sit back and watch the giants of the various Star Trek universes interact.
Plus, come on, you know you want to see William Shatner in a box:
Plus, come on, you know you want to see William Shatner in a box:
Grimm vs. Once Upon a Time reprise (no spoilers)
I'm going to have to flip my opinion of these two shows after seven episodes of each. Grimm has turned out to be a much, much better show.
Though I found the first episode of Grimm awkward, the writers seem to have really grown into the characters and smoothed them out. The complications of the main character being both a Grimm and a detective for the police has turned out to be really interesting and kind of hilarious. I can just imagine the evil beings of the world mocking him about killing them and then have him turn around and be like "Kill? Nah. Enjoy prison jackass!" His reluctant werewolf not quite friendship has also been a lot of fun. The werewolf clearly does not give a crap about helping him but is easily talked into it because he doesn't want to end up on the bad end of a Grimm knife...or in an interrogation room. They have done a great job keeping that relationship casual with tense overtones and very funny interactions. That was something I also didn't expect from the show - it has a Castle like humor between the main police officer buddies that I love. If you haven't watched it yet, I would definitely recommend popping on a few episodes.
As for Once Upon a Time, that show decided to go completely rogue on me. The first episode was enticing, but the more I watch the more I realize Grimm's one-off easy to watch alone episodes are much preferred to Once Upon a Time's very obviously never going to be resolved plot. I thought the show was going to be a sort of lighthearted fun and go off the more modern happier fairy tale versions of Grimm tales, rather than the darker ones. Boy was I wrong. My initial hesitation with this show was that they portrayed the real world as a "place with no happy endings" but then the fairy tale world they show flashbacks to is WORSE than the real world! It sucked there! Rumpelstiltskin pretty much screwed up all their lives in that time where the evil queen is messing with them in the new era.
That being said, I am extremely tired of everyone painting Rumpelstiltskin as a bad guy. In the real world he is not that bad at all. They tried to establish him as evil in the first episode but it was half hearted at best. The only other time he was remotely evil was the Cinderella episode, and my god, Cinderella was horrible in both the fairy tale and real worlds. I did not feel bad for her at all. She was a selfish brat and a complete moron in both versions of herself. I had zero sympathy for that character. I am having a hard time caring about any of the characters.
Then there was the Huntsman episode, and if you've seen it, you know what I mean. The plot finally progresses a little, we get some real evidence that their world might be "saved"/it's not really all in the kid's head, and then in the next instant they destroy it. So fairy tale world is back to square one. I really don't have much interest in watching the poorly written characters fight and scrape their way back to another small win.
If you don't mind a major spoiler about the last episode TV Addict has a fantastic article about why Once Upon a Time is dropping like a rock in ratings that I completely agree with.
Though I found the first episode of Grimm awkward, the writers seem to have really grown into the characters and smoothed them out. The complications of the main character being both a Grimm and a detective for the police has turned out to be really interesting and kind of hilarious. I can just imagine the evil beings of the world mocking him about killing them and then have him turn around and be like "Kill? Nah. Enjoy prison jackass!" His reluctant werewolf not quite friendship has also been a lot of fun. The werewolf clearly does not give a crap about helping him but is easily talked into it because he doesn't want to end up on the bad end of a Grimm knife...or in an interrogation room. They have done a great job keeping that relationship casual with tense overtones and very funny interactions. That was something I also didn't expect from the show - it has a Castle like humor between the main police officer buddies that I love. If you haven't watched it yet, I would definitely recommend popping on a few episodes.
As for Once Upon a Time, that show decided to go completely rogue on me. The first episode was enticing, but the more I watch the more I realize Grimm's one-off easy to watch alone episodes are much preferred to Once Upon a Time's very obviously never going to be resolved plot. I thought the show was going to be a sort of lighthearted fun and go off the more modern happier fairy tale versions of Grimm tales, rather than the darker ones. Boy was I wrong. My initial hesitation with this show was that they portrayed the real world as a "place with no happy endings" but then the fairy tale world they show flashbacks to is WORSE than the real world! It sucked there! Rumpelstiltskin pretty much screwed up all their lives in that time where the evil queen is messing with them in the new era.
That being said, I am extremely tired of everyone painting Rumpelstiltskin as a bad guy. In the real world he is not that bad at all. They tried to establish him as evil in the first episode but it was half hearted at best. The only other time he was remotely evil was the Cinderella episode, and my god, Cinderella was horrible in both the fairy tale and real worlds. I did not feel bad for her at all. She was a selfish brat and a complete moron in both versions of herself. I had zero sympathy for that character. I am having a hard time caring about any of the characters.
Then there was the Huntsman episode, and if you've seen it, you know what I mean. The plot finally progresses a little, we get some real evidence that their world might be "saved"/it's not really all in the kid's head, and then in the next instant they destroy it. So fairy tale world is back to square one. I really don't have much interest in watching the poorly written characters fight and scrape their way back to another small win.
If you don't mind a major spoiler about the last episode TV Addict has a fantastic article about why Once Upon a Time is dropping like a rock in ratings that I completely agree with.
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