My favorite popular jazz tunes

Here's a list of my top ten favorite popular jazz tunes and what I like about them. If you know jazz chances are you've heard all these tunes about a billion times. I feel that if you wanted to get into jazz and you listened to this list it would give you a great idea of what jazz is all about. This is essentially a straight ahead list.

Fly me to the moon
This is a an old jazz standard that goes back to the 50's. Not only is it a great jazz standard that a lot of straight ahead players play but its also been remixed a lot-like the version that's in a lot of Bayonetta (video game) videos that can be heard here. Sort of crass but satisfying all the same. I also dig saxophonist Jimmy Heath's rendition. 

Giant Steps
This will forever be one of my favorite heads of any jazz tune. That melody is pure scientific improvisational music composition. It sounds like a math equation, something mechanical turned biological-totally organic even though it's cool and calculated. Another way to put it is that it sounds like elevator music-because the saxophone lines are continuously going up and down the register of the instrument. I don't mean it in the smooth jazz sense. Thank god!

Straight, no chaser
The name reminds me of drinking at a bar and telling the barkeep,"Straight, no chaser." The melody is catchy and blues-influenced but still having a child-like playful originality. It's a great Monk tune. He wrote a ton of other tunes but this is probably his most well known tune other than Round 'Midnight.

Hat and Beard
This is an Eric Dolphy tune that I always seem to come back to. It isn't necessarily a popular jazz tune but if you know jazz from the sixties you would at least know Eric Dolphy. It opens the Out to Lunch album from 1964. It sounds like its definitely about a hat and beard sensibility. The melody is stuttered and calculated as Eric Dolphy blows out the entire register of his bass clarinet. Far out man.

The very thought of you
Billie Holiday was a great singer, probably the greatest jazz singer. I didn't like vocals in jazz until I heard her back in high-school. The way she delivers the song is akin to a folk musician telling a story-doing that in jazz is not easy. Its definitely my favorite love song.

There will never be another you
Another love song with vocals that goes way back. I love the way Billie Holiday sings this song but I also like Dewey Redman's tenor saxophone version as well. I'm a sucker for jazz standards about love.

Footprints
Wayne Shorter is a phenomenal soloist as well as composer. This tune is another must hear for any jazz listeners because it came out at such a turning point in jazz music-the late 60's when jazz was going towards a free jazz, fusion, and smooth jazz route. That was the last significant changes that came to jazz. The way that Tony Williams (drums) and Ron Carter (bass) play in the rhythm section gives the tune an Afro-Cuban vibe. The melody is a blues.

All the things you are
Another love song that I dig. The intro has this dark minor quality to it and then it goes into this beautiful melody that could make a grown man cry. Charlie Parker's version does it for me but there are a lot of great vocal performances that knock my socks off. I also like how this tune spawned a counter tune entitled All the things you aren't.

Donna Lee
Speaking of Charlie Parker....This is a great Charlie Parker tune that I like. The melody is fast, melodic, and heavily syncopated-everything a jazz head should be. Then Parker goes into a calculated alto solo that is the bees-knees. It's actually mistaken that Charlie Parker wrote this tune. It was Miles Davis who wrote the tune originally but Parker has gotten credit for it over the years. Jaco Pastorious' solo on his version is magnifique.

Body and soul
Another love song going back to the 30's that I love hearing and playing on the guitar when I play through my Fakebook. Check out this fantastic Charlie Parker rendition with Efferge Ware on guitar-here. The guitarist plays simple comping rhythms-stuff even I could play but he does it in such a commanding and musical manner it complements Parker's alto sax excursions well.

That version goes off from the main melody but a more stock version would be something like this. Here Coltrane plays the stock melody with some slight variations on the rhythms and timings. This tune is considered a challenging piece to solo over but the unusual nature of the chords provide a great deal of improvisational freedom.

I'm going to end the list here because I could go on and on about my favorites. That's my list. What are some of your favorite popular jazz tunes?

The picture is Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach in 1947. That's jazz history right there for ya. Thanks for reading and I will catch you all on the next post.

Competitive mode update-overwatch

Yesterday competitive mode came out in Overwatch. It's been a long time coming and its cool that Blizzard finally delivered this new addition to the game. Lets break it down! (Lucio reference).

For the most part Overwatch hasn't changed much, even in ranked. You'll need to be at least rank 25 to play competitive. All 12 maps are here and each map has its own competitive playstyle.

Escort and Hybrid maps — Dorado, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Route 66, King’s Row, Numbani, Hollywood
On any map with payload both teams fight to deliver the payload-one attacking and one defending. Whoever does better across both games wins the whole match.

Assault maps — Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, Volskaya Industries
These maps work similarly with a team attacking and the other defending but it also introduces a time bank system where each time has ten minutes. If your team can capture both points and your opponents can't that's game right there. But if you can cap the same amount of objectives you'll play again. This time the attackers will only have as much time they had left over from their attacking round.

Control maps — Nepal, Ilios, Lijiang Tower
These are the only maps that never end in a tie. They work essentially the same as in Quick Play except its a best of five instead of a best of three. First to win three rounds wins it all.

Sudden Death
Ties will drop both teams into a system known as sudden death where attackers only have around 2 minutes to cap a point, thus winning it all. If they can't capture the point then the defense team wins. It's decided who's attacking and who's defending by a coin flip. Many people feel this isn't fair. Game Director Jeff Kaplan said in a lengthy post that they're going to stay with this coin flip mechanic for this first season but they will address the issue in later seasons.

How does ranking work? Before you get a ranking you have to do ten placement matches. Skill rank is different from other games where 1 represents the worst players, 100 the best, and the majority fitting somewhere around 50. After every match you'll gain or lose skill rank points based on if you win or lose. You'll gain more sp (skill points) if you beat a team that has a higher average skill rating than your team.

Rewards
Lastly, the good stuff-cosmetic items. For completing the ten placement matches you get a unique player icon and spray for that season. Making it to top 500 for your entire server will place a special icon under your hero portrait instead of just your rank-and if you finish the season in the top 500 you get an animated spray unique to that season.

But for those of us that aren't going to be the top 500 players of our servers each competitive match you win will give you one ranked point. Ranked points can be spent on special cosmetic items-which are currently golden versions of each hero's guns or weapons. Right now golden guns are 300 ranked points which means you'll have to win 300 competitive matches just to get one-that isn't cheap! This takes a lot of player time as well dedication to the game to earn those golden guns. Lastly, the hero gallery has been updated to have a brand new weapons tab to house them which means there's potential for more unique items in the future.

Source: pcgamer

Dio's Holy Diver

Time to get in a musical thought. I've been listening to a lot of rock music lately and in particular I've been listening to Ronnie James Dio's Holy Diver album quite a bit. I would say its my favorite metal album at the moment. The thing that I like about this album is that its pure rock and roll without any filler or bullshit. In addition, all the songs are around the three-four minute mark. It's almost like punk rock with its simplicity and raw power. Also, that guitarist is no slouch either.

"Released on May 25, 1983, the album has been hailed by critics as Dio's best work and a classic staple in the heavy metal genre. The album was certified Gold in the US on September 12, 1984, and Platinum on March 21, 1989. In the UK it attained Silver certification (60,000 units sold) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in January 1986, at the same time as The Last in Line." (wiki)
 
Personnel
Assistant Engineer: Ray Leonard
Bass Guitar, Keyboards: Jimmy Bain
Digital Remasterer: Lee Herschberg
Drums: Vinny Appice
Engineer: Angelo Arcuri
Guitar: Vivian Campbell
Keyboards, Producer, Vocals: Ronnie James Dio
Masterer: George Marino
Composer, Lyricist, Writer: Dio
Composer, Lyricist: R.J. Dio
Contributor: Gene Hunter
Contributor: Wendy Dio
Writer: Ronnie James Dio

Let me tell you about all the tracks. The album opens with Stand Up and Shout. It's s fast heavy metal anthem with a muted guitar chugging riff. "You got the power! Stand up and shout!" The vocals delivered by Dio are so powerful and operatic but not so operatic that it sounds like classical music or progressive rock. There is no pretenstiousness here. Only straight up rock and roll. The guitar solo is super fast and technical. Most people who don't like metal would say its fretboard wankery but it hardly takes up any space in the song-its so fast. What we notice more is the vocal performance. At the end of the song there's a second guitar solo that's more bluesy and soulful. A classic 80's metal type of tune.

Next, Holy Diver. This is Dio's most recognizable and well known tune other than Eye of the Tiger. It opens with eerie keyboard chords then turns into something else entirely-a straight up metal song. The riff is so simple but its so catchy and infectious. The vocals are well known by pretty much anyone who's heard metal music. It's hard for even me not to sing along to this tune-it's that good! I have no idea what the lyrics mean but Dio sounds like he means every word. That's the true mark of a great singer. The way he conveys emotion through the vocals here is nothing short of amazing. The guitar solo is much more organized and meaningful than most of the other solos on the album. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It's straight up cliche 80's metal licks but its bluesy and soulful mixed in with some fast scalar runs. It has a nice melody too.

Then, there's Gypsy. This song starts out with some great guitar licks as Dio growls a bit. Hello early death metal? Vivan Campbell (guitar) is well known for his fretboard wizardry but this is the first time I've ever heard him. He does a great job as a studio guitarist in a rock group. I bet he does wonders on his solo albums. This song has a much more laid-back tempo and bluesy guitar riffs. The drums played by Vinnie Appice are especially much more tame here. He knows when to accent and when to hold off. The guitar solo here is straight up long hair guitar shredder stuff. It's fast and technical but lacks a coherent melody.

One of the other most well known Dio tunes is the next track-Caught in the Middle. A former co-worker of mine used to like singing this tune at work a lot. I didn't know the song back then but now that I know it now I can see why he loved it so much. It's a catchy melodic metal tune. Something that doesn't happen in these death and metal-core times of heavy metal. This is probably the best tune on the album other than Holy Diver. I would sing along to this too but its far beyond my vocal capabilities. The guitar solo is a twin melodic harmony-basically when guitars are played in different intervals but playing the same melodies.

The next tune is Don't Talk to Strangers. A ballad that opens with lush chords. I'm not usually the heavy metal power ballad type of guy but Dio's vocals are so phenomenal that it doesn't come across as corny or poppy. This is still metal, especially when the electric guitar riff comes in. It has this dark melodic harmonic guitar part that mixes it up between straight chugging riffs and rung out power chords. This would be a great song for the Guitar Hero video game. The guitar solo here is awesome! Tons of super fast scalar licks in his own style but it also has a nice melody (from Dio's vocals) mixed in the fast runs. Kiss wishes they were this good. Heck, Ozzy wishes he was this good.

Another well known Dio tune is Straight Through the Heart. It has this lazy guitar riff reminiscent of Deep Purple with a laid back drum beat. The riff has a bluesy flavor to it. Its almost like the guitar riff has a voice-like quality. It sounds like the guitar is doing the "Mojo rising" vocal line that Jim Morrison used to sing in that popular Doors song. The guitar solo is more relaxed and harmonic than most of the other solos heard thus far.

Invisible starts off as a power ballad that sounds corny. Then the true intentions of this album comes out when a pure metal riff gets played. Its nothing fancy but it sounds so catchy. They've done the same formula that the early metal pioneers did-play a riff and then just keep playing it. If it's good enough it will work. The interlude has this great guitar solo that favors melody before going into hyper speed overdrive. It can't be said enough how good of a singer Dio is. If his vocals weren't so great none of these simple guitar riffs, bass, and drums would mean anything. He brings so much to the table.

Rainbow in the Dark seems like another popular Dio tune. I've heard it before in the past but I didn't know the name or anything. It's one of those popular metal tunes. In the midst of the metal guitar riff there's a catchy keyboard part that joins in during the chorus. At this point in the album we know what Vivan Campbell is capable of. He's a great guitarist with tons of chops and his solos never disappoint. The cool thing about this album is that even though every song has guitar solos on it they never take up too much space in the songs. They're there to compliment the song rather than to show off. Okay, maybe he does show up just a bit.

The album ends with Shame on the Night. It has another super duper heavy metal guitar riff then when the vocals come in the bass is accented and played solo with the drums. Meanwhile, the guitar is doing some cool whammy bar effects, coming in with some power chords on the chorus alongside Dio's vocals. This tune also has a lot of feeling to it-everything but mostly the vocals. There's a bridge with some organ chords alongside a bluesy guitar riff. Then the metalness comes back in. It ends with a dark melodic guitar riff over some choir background vocals. Interesting tune.

What a great album! It's got me listening to early metal stuff. Dio died back in 2010 but his spirit lives on when we listen to his great music. "Despite being known for his powerful singing voice, Dio claimed never to have taken any vocal training^. Rather, he attributed his singing ability to the use of correct breathing techniques learned while playing trumpet." (wiki) He was a true musician. If you like metal music of any kind check out this album. You will not be disappointed.

Black magic bars our way!

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Blizzard games that I haven't touched in quite some time. I've even brought out my inner Protoss in Starcraft against my buddy. Today I started a new season character in Diablo III Reaper of Souls, Blizzard's timeless gothic rpg focused around killing demons and finding loot. I found myself having a blast with it again, just like old times.

I've been running barbarian builds the last two seasons, doing some cool seismic slam builds that do a ton of damage and can take a lot of hits at higher torment levels. However, today I settled for creating a monk, a class that I don't roll often.

I created a character (female monk named Mei-for obvious reasons) and got into a game. Luckily I found myself starting with another player, a demon hunter. We rolled through the first ten levels easy then he took off. It was fun but way too easy because it was on normal difficulty. I switched it to hard mode and started doing adventure mode on my own, because nobody else was playing at such low levels. This was where I found myself falling in love with the gameplay again, after not playing for months.

The super powered monsters (elites) hit me hard but as I leveled up and got better gear I was able to handle them better, to the point that I was able to destroy everything with ease. However, they could still destroy me. Especially with those pesky arcane orbs that line up around you as the elites hammer away at you. Even when you're at the max level of 70 if you don't have high resistance numbers those special effects from the monsters can make your health drop fast. I got to level 24 running bounties and rifts on my own. Then my brother came home. He power leveled me to 70 and that's all she wrote.

One could argue that I played the game wrong or that its not as enjoyable when you do things this way. But at least I did enjoy soloing the game the first 24 levels. I had the templar helping me out as I mowed things down. You were a templar Jondar!

Now that I'm at 70 the real game begins. Time to start doing bounties, rifts, greater rifts, and getting the horadric cube. The cube allows you to break down the stats on items and put them on other items, something like that. I haven't quite understood everything about the cube yet because when it came out was when I stopped playing. That was quite a few updates ago.

What makes this game so fun? I would say the simplicity of it. Although the game seems simple at first the more you get into it you can start to see how things get technical. The gameplay is addicting and the chances of better loot in drops makes you want to kill everything in sight in the hopes of getting that next great piece of gear. It's great when something drops and you can replace it, especially if it looks cool cosmetically. And lots of gear in this game looks super cool.

Also, the dark gothic look and feel to the game is awesome. There's tons of blood being sprayed, demons being slaughtered, and tons of cool bosses that need to be slayed. It's probably the most bloody game I've played other than Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress, where body parts often get blown apart and scattered, albeit in a cartoon fashion.

Blizzard is doing a great job keeping the game updated and the introduction of Season Characters promises rewards for rolling new characters. Although I was sad when they took down the Auction House in vanilla Diablo III I still enjoy the game. My friend was telling me he would still play if the Auction House was still being utilized. I thought the Auction House was a great idea but I did think that people were taking advantage, which was probably why Blizzard shut it down. Doing that forces every player to work for items themselves. Blizzard's even made it so that some specialized items like set pieces are binded to accounts so you can't give certain items away to friends or randoms. There are pros and cons to this of course but overall I think Blizzard's done an amazing job with the game.

To put things in perspective I used to be a Diablo 2 player back when I was a middle schooler. That game's pvp was amazing and I would still be down to play it today just for that aspect of the game. Diablo III is more focused on pve but it does pve so well that its light years ahead of what Diablo 2 was doing. The one thing I wish was better is pvp combat in this game.

My brother plays solo in private games but I've always enjoyed playing multiplayer games. However, I've had my moments where I've soloed a ton because I wanted to test the limits of my barbarians on their own at full power. It's a great gaming experience for single player fans as well as multiplayer fanatics like myself. I may sound like a Blizzard fanboy but that's because all their games are great. Not a single one of them (the recent ones) are bad. Not bad at all. I'm definitely going to be streaming some Diablo soon. Beware foul demons and beasts.

Thoughts on Heroes of the Storm's Medivh

Medivh is the new hero in Heroes of the Storm that can be picked up for 16,000 in game gold or $9.99 cash money. He's the latest hero that came out a few weeks ago. 
  
"Medivh, The Last Guardian, is a Ranged Specialist hero from the Warcraft universe. Under the influence of the demon lord Sargeras, Medivh opened the Dark Portal and unleashed the orcish Horde upon Azeroth. To atone for this sin, he rallied a new generation of heroes to stand against the Burning Legion during the Third War. In the Nexus, Medivh continues to lead his allies to greatness. He observes the battle from up high in Raven Form, then swoops down and uses shields and portals to turn the tide of battle. Now, he takes his place amongst the legends." (wiki)

So basically he's a badass that unleashed the orcs upon the humans in Azeroth. Basically the guy who started the fight between orcs and humans in the Warcraft games. How does he play? He flies around as a raven (passive ability-Z button) and can go anywhere on the map in raven form. He can't attack, he can only fly in that form. I'm only going to cover the basic abilities and not the talents because that would make things way too technical.

His first ability is Arcane Rift (Q).

60 Mana Cooldown: 7 seconds

Launch a rift that deals 399 (190 + 4% per level) damage to enemies in its path. If an enemy Hero is hit, reduce its cooldown by 5 seconds and refund 30 Mana. This is his main attack to deal damage. It doesn't deal very much damage but its perfect for getting that low health hero as they are running away. I've taken many a souls w/ this ability as the enemy is fleeing. Sometimes if I see a low health enemy player I'll fly to them in raven form and shoot out an arcane rift to finish them off. 

His second ability is Force of Will (W).

50 Mana Cooldown: 5 seconds

Protect an allied Hero from all damage for 1.5 seconds. This move is amazing. Basically it protects a hero from any damage-and I mean anything for 1.5 seconds. That might not be a long time but if used at the right moment you can save teammates and make sure they get to safety. One of the hardest parts about using Medivh is knowing when to throw out your force of will. You don't want to throw it out all the time but at the same time you don't want to conserve it only waiting for your teammates to be super low on health. It's a great ability and more of a support ability rather than a ranged specialist thing. It's probably my favorite Medivh ability because I like to play more of a support when I play. 

Next up, is the Portal ability.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Create a set of portals between you and the target location, allowing allies to teleport between both. The portals last 6 seconds. This is what makes Medivh Medivh in this game. It allows you to create a portal between two locations. Your teammates can use it to either escape from risky situations or as a offensive tool to chase down enemy heroes. It seems so simple but its probably the most technical thing about playing Medivh. He's not for beginners mostly because of the portal. Most people don't know how to use the portals. I'm still in the learning process myself. 

Then, they're are his two ultimate abilities. You can only choose one in game to use. 

Poly Bomb

75 Mana Cooldown: 40 seconds

Polymorph an enemy Hero, suppressing their attacks and Silencing them for 2 seconds. On expiration, Poly Bomb spreads to other nearby enemy Heroes. This is my favorite ultimate to choose because I like to see my enemies get turned into sheep (that's what polymorph means) and not be able to attack or cast spells for a short period. Also, sometimes when the enemies are grouped up, they all can get turned into sheep! It's great getting their whole team polymorphed and then your team swoops in and slays them. Who doesn't like sheep? Baaaaaa. 

His other ultimate is Ley Line Seal.

75 Mana Cooldown: 80 seconds

After 0.5 seconds, unleash a wave of energy that imprisons enemy Heroes in Stasis for 3 seconds. This is also a great choice but it definitely depends on the map and enemy heroes you're playing against. You would definitely want to use stasis on a control point or capture kind of map. This one puts enemies in their place for three seconds. In the meantime your team can gather around the stasis field and wait for it to end, and end them.

Lastly, I really enjoy playing Medivh. I would say he's my favorite hero that I've played in a long time. I haven't been this into Heroes of the Storm in a long time but Medivh is getting me back into it. I don't play him in ranked because I feel like I need to practice with him more. So I'm a Quick Match (non-ranked matches) warrior w/ him. In time I will get good enough and learn how he works better. Then I will use him in ranked matches and see how I do. I feel like he's more of a support sort of character more so than a high dps specialist. Part of it could be just the way I'm playing him because I do play him as more of a supportive role. At the same time though I do go out of my way to make sure my damage is high and things like that. Using the portals is definitely challenging because sometimes your teammates don't use them and just die. I really love the polymorph ultimate too. That's probably my favorite part. Medivh is just awesome. If you play Heroes and want to try out a super technical and satisfying character pick this hero up.  

X-Men Apocalypse

So today I finally got to see X-Men Apocalypse with two friends. I even got to see it for free! Awesome to have such a great friend that works at a theater. Anyways, let me say that this is a good movie. Not great or amazing but good. Slightly above average. I'd rate it like a seven out of ten-possibly a 7.5 if I was feeling generous. Let me tell you about my favorite parts of the film.

There's a scene where Sansa Stark (Jean Grey), Cyclops, and Nightcrawler are in this government facility and they find someone locked in a metal cage. Jean opens it up and out comes Wolverine! He proceeds to slice and dice every man in the facility, ripping them apart and stuff. It was awesome! Best part of the movie hands down. The price admission would be worth it just for this scene alone. While Logan's tearing the dudes up he looks into the camera because he knew he was being watched, and he growls like a wild animal. That part was really funny.

Then there was the part where Apocalypse cuts off those Egyptian guys' heads off with sand. This movie is super violent. It's like an anime or something. There's blood but its mild compared to horror films. Apoc was a straight up killer in this movie. There was a part where Apoc was making all the nukes in the world go off at the same time and he says something like,"But you can't stop god!" That was another scene that me and my friend thought was pretty hilarious.

Then there was the big fight at the end where Apoc's mutants fight the small X-Men team. I really liked Olivia Munn's (Psylocke) outfit. As my friend said,"The waifu Psylocke." Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Then there was the Egyptian girl who turned out to be Storm. She had a cool energy beam fight against Cyclops that was cool.

Another favorite scene of mine was when the Russian police came for Magneto when they found out he used his powers to save someone at his machine factory he worked at. They took his daughter and he said he would let them take him in if they gave his daughter back. So they're about to wrap his hands up and his daughter starts getting super upset saying,"I won't let them take you." Then all these birds show up out of nowhere and start attacking the police. We didn't know she was a mutant but in an earlier scene we see her chilling with a bunch of bucks so I guess I could've naturally assumed she was. Anyways, the police have bow and arrows because they can't use metal against Magneto and they end up shooting Magneto's daughter and wife with an arrow. That was the turning point in the movie where Magneto goes back to being evil.

The ending was awesome. Apoc ends up getting annihilated by Sansa Stark's Phoenix form. His body just gets disintegrated. It was a glorious death to see him get owned like that. Apocalypse eliminated. It was also cool to finally see Jean Grey let loose and use the full potential of her powers. I can see them go farther with her powers in the next film, making the villains much stronger to evenly match her abilities.

Lastly, the acting in this movie was great. The characters were all believable and we had some of the fan favorites from X-Men First Class, probably the best X-Men movie ever made. To know that they're still making X-Men stuff is pretty cool. It will be great to see them do another one in the future. 7/10, great for friends and family. Not so much for serious adults.

Heroes of the Storm Balance Patch Notes-June 21,2016

 

So I was playing Heroes earlier today when I got booted off because I had to update the game. A new patch just came through this morning. Let me tell you about it.

First off the change were all for Kael'thas, Chromie, and Rehgar.

Kael's Living Bomb ability (W)'s damage over time has been reduced from 84 to 50. And his explosion damage increased from 138 to 200. Blizz said they think KT's single target damage is too high so they're pointing him towards being more of an AoE mage. This is the beginning of that process. We should expect to see more tweaks in that format in the future.

Chromie's Time Trap (E) mana cost has been reduced from 50 to 25. The cast range increased by 50% too. And the time trap base health has increased from 200 to 300. Basically Blizz wants Chromie to keep using strategic positioning to stay alive but have less of a mana drain on the time traps as well as increasing their range and health. These changes will help Chromie protect herself from enemies that she knows are coming.

Rehgar's basic attack damage increased from 95 to 99. His Chain Heal (Q) primary heal amount was reduced from 372 to 334. The secondary bounce heal amount was reduced from 186 to 167. Lighting Shield (W) damage was increased from 60 damage per second to 64 damage per second. His level 4 Stormcaller (W) talent changed too. Mana return increased from 3 to 4 per Hero hit. Maximum mana returned increased from 30 to 40. Blizz and the community think Reh is great in competitive play as well as casual play. This is an overall nerf but they increased his damage potential, giving him more opportunities for those aggressive healer plays. Sounds like my kind of thing. Usually I go for Tyrande in Quick Match often because I can heal as well as be aggressive. However, I don't think Tyrande is as strong as Rehgar is in competitive play. 

Then there were bug fixes.

• Fixed an issue causing the Hero League screen to fail to update with Placement Match results after a game completed.
• Rehgar: The untalented Lightning Shield gained from the Lightning Bond talent will no longer increase the damage dealt by Rising Storm when both talents are taken.
• Tracer: Fixed an issue causing Pulse Bomb to deal unintended additional damage when certain talents were chosen.
• The Profile Statistics page will now show the highest rank earned for current and previous seasons, instead of current rank.
• The Profile Summary page will now show lifetime player and Hero stats instead of the current season’s stats.

So yeah that's it. It hurts to see my favorite orc get nerfed but at the same time his damage potential is increased so it's not a bad trade. It's great to see Blizzard still updating the game and keeping up with the community.

Source: Battlenet blog

Coolest games from E3

So E3 just happened recently and it turned out to be a great time with wonderful new games. Lets talk about some of the cool games that we can look forward to in the near future. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: It feels like the same old Zelda we're used to but its a huge open world design that most modern games feature. There's some sandbox elements like cutting down trees to get through paths. The graphics are cell-shady which reminds me of the Wind Waker, another great Zelda title. Can't wait to see the bosses. Time to start playing that Wii U again!

Telltales Batman: Its character driven and story-driven and its made with a new engine. Its going to feature a lot more Bruce Wayne than we're used to in Batman games. Time to put on my suit and look fancy!

Titanfall 2: The grappling hook looks great. It seems like the grappling hook idea that they had in Team Fortress 2 except way better. There's going to be a story-mode too which the first one lacked. Also, they're going to give everyone the dlc for free so that the community doesn't get divided. I've met a developer who works at Respawn and I told him how awesome the trailer looked. I also mentioned how the free dlc is a great way to keep the community together.

Horizon Zero Dawn: This is a cool action style game with a bit of Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, and Zelda. The game pits you as a primitive warrior type fighting against robotic dinosaurs and such. Domo arigato Mr. Roboto.

God of War 4: The game is still brutal and visceral and the graphics are gorgeous. An interesting new story will be a big part of it.

Battlefield 1: All the old technology used in World War I plays out well in the 64-player multiplayer mode.   

Gears of War 4: Time to get into cover!

Bloodstained:Ritual of the Night: The new Castlevania style game.

Batman Arkam VR: All about puzzles and being a detective.

Games I'm personally excited about the most.

Skyrim Special Edition: I really love Skyrim although I've never gotten that far in the game. However, I'd be down to buy the special edition because the times I've played have been so fun that I feel like I'd need it. I would definitely be down to finally finish the campaign with a special edition that includes better graphics and mod support.

Fallout 4 dlc: I haven't played Fallout 4 but the more dlc comes out, the more I want to play it. I really like Bethesda games because they are super fun single player experiences where normally I'm not a single player guy. However, all of Bethesda's games are worth playing even if you don't enjoy the single player experience as much as multiplayer.

Quake Champions: The trailer has a cool blue-haired vixen and the characters look like futuristic bad-asses. It looks especially cool because I just got into fps games competitively.

Doom dlc: So the news of more Doom dlc sounds great. Makes the game look more appealing even though I haven't bought a new game since Overwatch came out. Might want to pick this up in the future.

This year's E3 was a blast and it was cool watching the press conferences on YouTube. This year so far has already given us great titles. The most interesting game at the moment to me is the new Zelda. It will be good to see another great title on the Wii U because good titles on that console have been severely lacking as of late. The future of gaming looks brighter with each passing day. A bright sunshiny day. 

Overwatch replacing League of Legends?

I saw an interesting video about how Overwatch might be replacing League of Legends for some people. This has been coming up a lot on forums, posts, and even in game. The answer is yes. For some people. The Korean pc bangs are usually full of people playing League but that has changed. Now they're all playing Overwatch. The way pc bangs work is that people pay a small amount and they get to play any games they want on high powered computer machines. There's definitely a shift that's happening. Something about Overwatch draws a lot of League players into it. Why is that?

Overwatch is completely different from League but there are similarities. One is a top down moba where you fight in lanes as heroes with creeps and the other is a first person team-based shooter. However, both games are team focused and both games feature heroes with unique abilities. Sometimes people say Overwatch is kind of like a moba because of all the unique abilities and how all the heroes have their own special weapons and play-styles. In addition, both games are strong in the eSports scene. Overwatch is quickly becoming a massive eSport.

This does make sense. People don't want more games like League and that has been proven. Just like how people don't want more games like World of Warcraft. People are moving from League to Overwatch because its different. In addition, people are unhappy about some of the recent changes in League.

Also, the game time limits are way different. In League you're comitted to staying there for at least thirty minutes. In Overwatch you can finish a game in five minutes if your team is really good. Because of this factor alone that could determine more people playing Overwatch because they can get in a quick couple games then go do something else.

Lastly, League is super old. People move on and they want the new, exciting thing. Overwatch won't reach the same player base numbers of League of Legends because League is free to play and Overwatch is a $40 game. That will exclude a lot of people who play games for free and never spend any money. But the news from Korean pc bangs numbers, anecdotal evidence from people talking, and the fact that former League players are now Overwatch players is something that doesn't go unnoticed. Overwatch is now the largest Blizzard subreddit and its quickly surpassing other gaming subreddits. In addition, people are hungry for Overwatch the game and content. The game has truly captured the current gaming zeitgeist. It will be interesting to see how far the game will go in the future.

Source: Force Gaming YT channel

Overwatch competitive mode update

So competitive play is coming to Overwatch at the end of June-really soon! Competitive play is going to be for players that want to take the game more seriously. There was a competitive mode in beta but at the time people said that it wasn't competitive enough. Jeff Kaplan (director of Overwatch) made a video about how they are bringing us new changes with this new update coming up.

First, they're going to extend seasons. It's going to be more of a three month season based on real seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. We'll basically be able to play for two and a half months, then there will be a break, and then it will start again.

Next, the format for assault and escort modes will be changed. One thing that used to happen a lot is that the game would go into sudden death (overtime) way too much-about 35% of the time. When its a close match its cool but Blizzard wants to minimize how often that happens. The other thing is that when sudden death happens it will resolve on the map that you're playing on rather than a random control point map.

Then, there's assault mode. People thought that these maps were ending way too quickly. So they want to make the maps last longer.

The other thing about competitive play is progression versus skill. In the beta it felt like a grind but the players made it clear (on reddit) that they just wanted to know where their skill was compared to other players. After all, this is competitive mode. From now on their won't be tiers. Instead, it will be based on mmr (match making rating) and it will be directly correlated to something called skill rating, which will go between one and one hundred. When you come out of placement matches you will be able to see your skill rating and you'll see other players' skill ratings as well on your screen. You'll also see the team average skill rating and you'll be able to see how fair of a chance the match will be. Not every match will be perfectly fair but you will stand more to gain if you win. People really want to know their skill. But the downside of a system like this is that you're going to go down but this is the competetive system that they think players attracted to competetive play will want. If not, then Blizz is willing to change the system overtime to be right for Overwatch and the players.

Blizz wants this game to be as great as we do and they're right there alongside of us playing and feeling what we're feeling. They think this update is going to be great but if its not they will make adjustments and improve things from there.

Lastly, there will be some rewards. Mostly cosmetic:sprays, player icons, cool customized golden guns etc. The highest skilled players will have it right away and there will also be exclusive stuff that only the top players will have.

So yeah, that's competitive play as directly talked about by Jeff Kaplan in a new video. Sounds exciting!

Source: Jeff Kaplan's new YT video

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows

So I saw this movie a while back and I thought it was dope. Although it wasn't anything spectacular I would still rate it like a 7, maybe a 7.5 out of 10. It's a slightly above average movie. Part of why I enjoyed the film so much is that I got to see it for free with my friends. Hurray for working at a theater! Let's talk about what made the movie good and what could've been better.

First of all, there were some funny moments in this movie. When Bebop and Rocksteady get turned into the Warthog and Rhino, they both opens their pants and looked down and Bebop was all like,"my man!" My man became one of the movie's inside jokes because Bebop kept saying it throughout. As my friend put it,"I would be proud if I had a rhino dick too." Pretty hilarious scene but you can see why the film got PG-13.

Also, there was a moment when Leonardo was talking about all his brother's faults. When he brings up Michelangelo he says,"Mikey's head is always in the clouds." Which made it sound like Mikey was some kind of abhorrent drug user. Me and the guys thought it was pretty funny.

Then there were moments that were somewhat inspirational for a kids movie about ninja turtles. At one point the turtles were seen by the police and they were shooting at them and afraid. Once the turtles get back to their underground base Mikey says something to Splinter about how he wished they could live normal lives above ground. Splinter retorts with,"people fear what they do not understand." It was probably the most profound moment of the movie and something that is totally true.

In addition, the action scenes in the movie were great. Exciting and engaging. Sometimes over the top but still fun. For example there was a scene where the turtles are flying a plane and the top gets ripped apart and they're all diving to their deaths. Then Donatello grabs the wheel and tries to fly, only for that to fall apart too. Then he sticks his staff where the wheel was and somehow keeps the plane airborne long enough for them to land in a large body of water.

There was another fun scene where Casey Jones (played by Stephen Amell, aka Green Arrow actor) is fighting Bebop and Rocksteady with nothing but his hockey stick and some pucks. Obviously this fight would never end in Casey being the victor but it shows him getter the better of them. Interesting take.

Then there was the final fight against Krang. Krang is this giant brain that can talk but has no body so he uses a mechanical body for movement as well as fighting the turtles. Fighting him was the biggest spectacle of the movie because he had a battleship being warped in from some other dimension. It was called the Technodrome and its from the original cartoon. Having Krang as the enemy had a lot of nostalgia factor because in the original cartoon series he was one of the biggest villains. However, this movie's Krang was so annoying and lame it was hard to take him seriously as a villain. Also, he got his slime mucus all over the Shredder. He was spreading the slime all over the Shredder's face and was like,"oh, I'm sorry did I get my mucus on you?" Gross.

Anyways, so while the turtles are fighting Krang the Technodrome is being built in the sky like some kind of Transformers thing. It felt like I was watching Transformers during that scene. It was weird how Krang mostly fought hand to hand combat, only pulling out some kind of laser gun to try to fry the turtles. He missed all his shots and got wrecked. Rip.

How could this movie have been better? Well, they could've put more nostalgia factor into it. They did have the turtles truck that they used in the cartoon but the only thing that connects this movie to the original series is the ending credits when the tmnt original theme song comes on. That's the best part of this movie! When that came on I felt like a kid watching my favorite show.

Another thing is they shouldn't cast Megan Fox as April O'Neal. She's a terrible April. Yes, she's sexy but she just doesn't have that actor's aura to play an interesting April. Instead, we get this boring generic April that tries to fight Foot Clan soldiers on her own with Vern (Will Arnette). Why? I will never know.

Lastly, there should've been some fight scene with Master Splinter. It would've been awesome to see him face off against Krang or something but instead he plays more of a backseat role as a sort of Zen father to his ninja turtle sons. He was my favorite character for his wisdom. The turtles all have their own distinct personalities but they're all greatly exaggerated in this movie. Casey Jones is a great addition toe the tmnt movies and Stephen Amell has a great stage presence as an actor. His character was believable where most of the cast I couldn't take seriously.

So that's my take on Out of the Shadows. This is a fun movie for friends, family, and kids. I can recommend it more so for the new generation of ninja turtles fans more so than the old crowd who don't want their beloved original cartoon series to be sullied.

I've been seeing a lot of shows and movies lately. I'll keep you posted if I see anything interesting. Orlando out.

Fire and Dice sm4sh tournament, The road to Evo edition

So today I finally made a return back to tournaments after a hiatus. That was because of work. I usually never get Thursdays off but today I was finally able to make it. It was a great experience and I even played well. I've gotten so much better at the game even though I haven't been to any tournaments for a while and I don't get to train with anybody really good. My only training was an all night session I had on For Glory (the online mode), which is sort of frowned upon in the tournament community because they all think its bad because it trains you into playing with lag. There's my friends I hang out with on the regular but lately we haven't been playing smash. Instead, we've been going out to the beach, working out, playing YuGiOh!, and working our asses off to make money.

I got to the venue pretty early before doubles (2v2 matches) and there was already a good amount of people there. I started playing friendlies with this random guy with long hair and it turned out to be awesome. I got bodied sometimes but other times I completely wrecked him. Very even. He had a strong Ryu, that's for sure. Way more people showed up and eventually we found out there was like sixty people that signed up for singles. Needless to say, there wasn't any friendlies going on until late in the evening when a lot of people left. This tournament wasn't completely stacked but there was the usual PR (power ranked) Socal players like K9SBruce (Sheik), S2H (Metaknight), Aphro (Bayonetta), Zenyou (Mario), Rich Brown (Mewtwo), Zork (Bowser), and Nicko (Shulk).

I got called to play my first set right away once singles started. I played some young guy that went Kirby. He had good spacing but I overpowered him with Bayonetta. He switched to Robin and it was super close. I thought I was going to lose but he sd'd (suicide death). However, it was so close that he might've lost anyways. Plus, I was ready for whatever he had in store if he had won. It was a pretty clean set for me and I bodied his Kirby. It was great! I felt like I had more matchup knowledge than he did against Robin because one of my best friends has a super good Robin.

After some waiting I went to sit down against my next opponent. K9SBruce. One of the best Sheiks in Socal. However, he went Diddy against me. But he didn't hold back whatsoever. He was getting me in so many linked chain combos it was ridiculous. I lost fast as Bayonetta. Game two I switched to Fox and gave it a go. At first I was getting in a lot of good hits and some short chains. I even taunted! On accident of course lol. I lost but I went down fighting. I had him well over 100% which to me is an accomplishment saying since I'm out of practice and I was going against one of the best players in the area. The best part of playing K9 is that he gave me some great advice. What a guy! Later on I watched him play more of his tournament matches but he didn't do so hot today. Part of it I feel is that the nerfs hit Shiek hard but another part of it is that some players have to be "really feeling it" to play well and I think he's one of those players.

After more waiting around I played my last set against a Samus player. Game one he outplayed me but I still played well. Game two I played better but I sd'd after getting an early kill on him. He started to wreck me hard but then I figured out his style and adapted. We were both well over 100% but he got off a clutch charge shot that finished me off. I was a little upset because if I didn't sd I know I would've taken it to game three. But as the smashers say,"we take those".

Also, I almost got the Bayonetta zero-death combo on him where you take them over the top of the stage and kill them. Close but no cigar. This guy was like the first guy I played. He was a young guy that was good but probably not more experienced than me when it comes to tournaments. If only I didn't sd. Oh well. I can't see it as a bad thing because I almost brought it back after killing myself. It shows that I've improved despite not having good training partners. Kind of nice.

After that I got some Subway, came back to the venue, and watched some of the high level players duke it out on the big screen. My favorite set was grandfinals which was Zenyou (Mario) vs Nicko (Shulk). It was a great set. At first Nicko was bodying Zenyou with all these great Monado sword hits. Nicko's spacing was amazing and he was doing all these short hop fairs and nairs. It was so cool to see someone play Shulk at such a high level. However, Zenyou adapted. He started pulling off these amazing Mario chainlink combos that usually ended with Mario's up-B coin jump attack, even getting the final KO with it. Although Nicko lost the set he went down fighting, rightfully earning that second place finish.

I also enjoyed K9 versus Aphro. I'm a big fan of Aphro mostly because he plays Bayonetta and he's one of the better Bayo's in Socal. He has an interesting style that doesn't rely on the zero-death combo stuff or divekick. Instead, he relies more on spacing and a lot of backairs for his KO's.

Rich Brown (Mewtwo) had some great games versus Nicko (Shulk). They had a pretty good set where I thought Rich was going to take it but then Nicko switched from Marth to Shulk and it was like a whole different ball game. That was a pretty fun to see. 

After a bit I got to play a few more friendlies. Won some, lost some. It was a great time overall and it was great seeing all my sm4sh friends that I haven't seen in like two months because I've been at work on Thursdays. I might consider trying to get Thursdays off on a permanent basis to get back in the tournament scene like I was earlier this year. Something to figure out for the future. I look forward to doing better at the next one I attend. Here are the top players placements.

1st - ATRAKT | Zenyou [Mario]
2nd - FAD | Nicko [Shulk/Marth]
3rd - eM | Aphro [Bayonetta/Rosalina]
4th - NIPS | K9sbruce [Sheik/Diddy]
5th - PG FAD | Zan [Toon Link]
5th - 2S | SM [Corrin/Ike]
7th - A2 | Dynamo [Sheik]
7th - NxT JP | SoCalGohan [Mario]

That's all for now. Watch this space.

Let's drop the beat

I wanted to do a short post about the music I've been listening to lately. So here we go.

Lately, I haven't really been pushing myself to listen to newer things. I've been a traditionalist when it comes to jazz especially. I've been listening to Kind of Blue and Giant Steps a lot in particular. There's something about those albums that just keeps me going back and re-listening. I have tried listening to some newer jazz concerts on YouTube too. I saw a great concert of the Bad Plus playing the entirety of Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction album. Now that was marvelous! They had some extra musicians playing saxophones and trumpet. Great stuff. The Bad Plus is definitely one of the elite jazz groups in the current jazz idiom. That's the Bad Plus in the picture. In addition, I saw a great performance by Terence Blanchard. The music was mostly jazz fusion with hints of bop throughout. The guitarist Blanchard has in the group is super technical but not very emotive. However, his chops were still incredible. Like a young Allan Holdsworth or something. Cool man.

In terms of metal I've been listening to Arch Enemy. I see them as a stereotypical death metal band but there is quality to their music that you wouldn't find in younger metal or metal-core groups. They're all adults with great musical chops, and they know how to put on a show. Kind of like Slayer. I guess I could compare them to Slayer in a way because they both have a massive fan-base. Plus Jeff Loomis is in the band. He's this great shredder from a band called Nevermore. In addition, I've been listening to a lot of standard shred guitar stuff. People like Kiko Louriea (new guitarist for Megadeth), John Petrucci, Paco De Lucia, all that jazz. A lot of the metal stuff differs from the jazz so much that I feel like I can't listen to metal for all that long before I tire of all the distortion and neoclassical harmonies. There's only so much I can take before I turn that shit off. But it's still fun to listen to.

I usually listen to music before I fall asleep or when I'm writing. However, I do believe that to thoroughly enjoy music and understand it you must listen to it in a clear frame of mind without doing anything else. Sometimes I have the time for it and other times I don't. I look forward to actually listening and finding new stuff sometime soon. I'll let you know about it of course!

One shot, one kill

Lately, I've been getting really into first person shooter games. I've always known they existed but I was never particularly interested in them. Like at all. Ever. Until recently. I heard about Overwatch coming out and I played a bit of the beta at my friends house. Because I couldn't play the beta at my house I instead turned to a free to play game called Team Fortress 2. That was the turning point.

Team Fortress 2 is a class based objective shooter similar to Overwatch (mostly just in aesthetics) except its been around since 2007. The game has a lot of history and a true legacy as a computer game on Steam. I used to play other fps's like Cod: Black Ops 1 and 2 back when I didn't have a computer and instead gamed on an Xbox360. However, I was never really that great and never put in the time or practice to get better because I wasn't playing it because I enjoyed it. I played it because I had a lot of friends online that played. And boy were they good! 360 no-scope headshots all day. They were great players.

Anyways, so I've tried a lot of different fps's but none of them really clicked for me until I played Team Fortress. Something about the game just draws me in to play more. Not to win games or to be the best. But to improve at the game and know that I've gotten better. Skill shots and stuff like that are all apart of it but the satisfaction comes with knowing that you've improved by leaps and bounds.

I started out playing the medic just like how I started playing Overwatch, using the support healers but now I've moved on to playing snipers. In Overwatch I favor Hanzo's bow and arrows over Widowmaker's sniper rifle. In Tf2 you can also use a bow and arrow. Boy, is that thing fun! It's a blast getting insta-kill headshots with the bow. The sniper rifle is fun too but I like the pull and release of the bow, there's something realistic about it even though I'm just hitting a keyboard and maneuvering with a mouse. It has some real weight to it if that makes sense. The same thing could be said for Hanzo in Overwatch. He's a powerhouse character who seems unstoppable if left unchecked. Usually the other team must have a Widowmaker or another Hanzo just to deal with him. Part of the fun of playing snipers is sniping other snipers. It's a real treat that never gets old. Sometimes its a race of who shoots who when the other guy is reloading. Good times.

Now that I've dived in headfirst into the fps gaming pool I'm starting to play other shooters that I've owned but neglected because I wasn't too into the genre before. I've even started playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive, another great fps made by Valve,the guys who made Tf2. I'm interested in giving some of the other fps's I own on computer another shot. Games like Titanfall, Battlefield 4, Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex First Assault, and single player games with an emphasis on shooting. Games like Half Life, Bioshock, Deadspace, Skyrim ('cuz of the bow), and Fallout all look super appealing to me now. Time to finally start playing all those Steam titles that I haven't touched yet or just haven't played all that much.

It's been a real treat playing sniper. It's definitely more my play style than going in the middle of the fight. I'm more of a chill guy who lays low in the back. Not quite camping but not rushing into the thick of it either. If you never particularly liked fps games perhaps you should give them another shot. Maybe you just need to find the right one. They are definitely worth it for all the fun and satisfaction. One question I'd like to ask is are we in a new era of fps games? It seems so. I like the sound of that.

Its nerf or nothin'

So yesterday Overwatch got a major patch update that nerfed McCree and Widowmaker, thus making some other characters stronger in a way. It's like a chain reaction. It's great knowing now that Zenyatta can't get one shot body shotted by Widowmaker. I feel like I can really start playing Zenyatta more and not be afraid of that. What a pain that was!

Okay, so check out this info here to understand everything about the patch. The post important thing to note is that McCree's alt-fire damage has been decreased from 70 to 45. This means that he can still annihilate the lighter/medium light heroes in seconds but now he can't melt through tanks like a knife on hot butter anymore. Good news everyone! I really like McCree because I always call him that Clint Eastwood motherfucker but the fact of the matter is that he's one of the best characters in the game still. Every competitive Overwatch team has a McCree it seems. The same could be said of Widowmaker.

And for the changes to Widowmaker I think I'll just quote the pcgamer article. "Widowmaker has also been changed: Her sniper fire base damage has been reduced from 15 to 12, the headshot multiplier bumped from 2 to 2.5, her ultimate charge cost has been increased by ten percent, and players will no longer be able to re-enter sniping mode until after the “exit sniping mode” animation has completed."

Yes, yes, this is a real nerf. But is it something that changes her drastically or the way she will be played? I think not. She will still be used in a lot of the games we play and she can still be an unstoppable killing machine. This is my opinion but its also from personal experience playing the game since the patch. She still feels strong to me but I don't feel like she's overpowered if that makes sense. Basically she was nerfed but people with good aim will still dominate the battlefield. 

So what does this all mean? It means a lot considering the game just came out and no new content has come to the players. Does it mean there's going to be less Widowmakers and McCree's? I don't think so. After playing just a bit since the patch I noticed there were still McCree's and Widowmakers in pretty much every game. I think competitive Overwatch teams are still all going to have them aboard too. However, the patch was much needed and gives us, the player base something to work with as we wait for the ranked mode later this month as well as the new maps and more heroes. This is a great addition to the game and it's good to see that Blizzard is keeping up the good work by keeping the game as balanced as they can. People will always complain that certain heroes are overpowered or too weak but ultimately its the company that decides what is what. Hopefully Blizzard continues to listen to the players and make wise decisions with their balancing. So far I like what I see.

That's it for now. If you want to play with me on Overwatch my battlenet id is Ogspace#1967. Stay happy, and stay gaming.

A call for peace

Lately there has been a lot of shootings and mass deaths. The Orlando shooting at the club was horrific. I'm not usually a political guy at all but on the gun issue I must say that we have to put a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. Nobody should have weapons that can kill fifty people in minutes and injure another fifty. Those among the injured might even die too. This story is pretty much all that everybody is talking about. Even the announcers at E3 talked about it a bit as awkward as that sounds. I think the only logical way to help prevent these senseless acts of rage is to ban assault weapons. If the guy only had a pistol there's no way he would've been able to kill that many people that fast.

So I think they should ban assault weapons. In addition, they should make it harder to gain access to guns-any guns. There should be a more throughout medical evaluation and mental history for all gun owners. Lastly, there should be rigorous gun training classes that are mandatory for all gun owners. Now, I'm no gun expert and I've never even shot a gun before so I'm not sure if they already have these things in motion. But if they do, it seems like they aren't doing a good job of it at all.

I classify myself as a progressive democrat with some socialist leanings so you can sort of expect where I lean on the gun issue and how I feel about the NRA gun lobbyists. They're horrible. They have all this money and power over our government and every time something fucked up like this happens we all talk about banning assault weapons and nothing ever happens. That's because of the NRA gun lobbyists and Republicans but also the Democrats that are protecting the NRA and gun lobbyists too. They're all to blame because they're not doing anything of substantial change. They bring awareness to the issue and we mourn the victims as a national ritual for a short while but ultimately nothing substantial is ever done. This makes me very sad as an American because it shows that our government is run, bought, and sold by these gun tooting NRA lobbyists and they're not showing proper respect for our dead by making it harder for these things to happen again in the future.

I obviously have my own ideas about guns. For me, in a perfect America, there would be no need for guns, either by civilians nor the police. That way nobody could get killed by bullets and stupidity. Basically I want America to be like Japan or Canada-where most semi-automatic weapons are banned. Obviously America isn't that kind of country because mass shootings happen here on the daily and people are fighting for their right to bear arms because of the Second Amendment. Although I don't think we should change the constitution, I do think there are times when the laws need to adjusted to fit the situation as things change over time. This is why I think they need to ban assault weapons. It's like fucking Call of Duty out here. Obviously that's an overstatement but today we live in a world where you can get killed anywhere doing anything. Which leads me to my next point.

The Orlando story will capture the media's attention for weeks, as it should. But on June 12 Christina Grimmie was gunned down when she was signing autographs after a concert. She was a big gamer that I used to see at Fire and Dice but she was also a talented singer that was a finalist on The Voice. What happened to her was tragic. Although I never talked to her or even played her in bracket there's an empty feeling knowing that she's gone. If you're a famous person things like this can happen to you. It's that kind of world we live in. It's a scary place. She will be missed and we will remember her as a whole in the SoCal Smash 4 community.

To wrap things up the greatest thing we can do is come together as a nation, continents, and even world and give peace a chance. It's easier said than done but blaming guns isn't going to fix this issue. The government isn't going to fix this issue either-otherwise they would've done it a long time ago. People and only people are the bringers of peace. Peace is salvation. Give peace a chance.

Lok'tar ogar

So I saw the new Warcraft movie w/ my brother yesterday. And what a great movie it was. The reviews online are saying that its okay or that its bad but I think its pretty good. I would go so far as to say this is the best video game movie ever made. Better than any of those cult fan made films and definitely better than any other gaming stuff Hollywood has produced. Blizzard has outdone themselves with a true masterpiece. That might be going too far calling it a masterpiece but I do think the movie was above average. On a scale of 1-10 I would give it an 8.5, pretty high by my standards. Let's talk about what could've been better, and what was good.

Okay, first of all, the movie had several problems. The biggest one of all is that there's a ton of characters and we don't get to know them, their names (too many nerdy names to remember), and they just get thrown at us without any backstory or much introduction. There's the main orc chieftain named Durotan, head of the Frostwolf clan, Khadgar the young human mage, and there's the human general that I forget his name. Those are the only characters that we really get to know well and care about. There's all these other characters but in the scheme of things they all are minor characters. Everyone else is pretty much a minor role. There's so many characters that none of them really get the airtime that they deserve. Instead they shove as many characters down our throats as possible and for the most part we can't remember their names. So the characters were kind of not thought about or planned out very well.

In addition, the fighting scenes in this movie are very short and anticlimactic. There's a fight at the end after the big battle where the human general takes on the orc warchief. Its the most anticlimactic fight ever. The human guy wins the battle in one sweeping motion. However, the orcs are proud of the human for defeating the warchief in one of their grand rituals so that was super cool how noble the orcs were. Brownie points!

There was this minor love interest thing in the film that just led nowhere. It could've done without it. Basically an orc woman and the human general kind of have a thing but not really a thing, ya know? Like they were close but they never got too close or even kissed. So what was the point? I have no clue.

Anyways, I also thought the movie was too long. Its 2 hours and 3 minutes long-way too long for me. I guess that's standard Hollywood time lengths but they could've cut out so much of the dumb stuff to make the movie shorter and more cohesive. For example, they could've completely skipped the dumb fight w/ Medev's golum that turned out to be super weak anyways. They could've also skipped out most of the lame talking parts. A lot of this movie was just the Alliance peoples talking and the Orc peoples talking about what they were gonna do. I know that's plot and setting up suspense and drama but it got old fast. By the second act I'm tired about hearing what they're going to do. When there's little action the movie gets boring. When the action gets going and peaks that's when things get good. Which leads me to my next point.

The fighting scenes in this movie are phenomenal. The orcs are huge as they should be and they absolutely just annihilate the Alliance soldiers when they first meet them. I was rooting for the orcs the whole way until I realized I was an Alliance guy in World of Warcraft XD. The humans aren't afraid of the orcs even though they are weaker and can get slayed easily. There's some brutal scenes in this movie where Alliance soldiers get their heads crushed, orcs get stabbed through their backs, and Guldan just straight up mass murders tons of people using fel magic. Fel magic is basically demonic magic that Guldan, an orc warlock was using throughout the movie to open the portal to Azeroth. Which brings up my next point.

The story is great. It basically follows everything that happens before World of Warcraft and Warcraft III. So basically if you know the first two games-Orcs and Humans and Beyond the Dark Portal you pretty much know everything that's going to happen in this movie. Basically the orcs are from a different world called Outlands and the humans live in Azeroth. Guldan is able to open up a portal that takes the orcs to Azeroth, where they're supposed to conquer the entire world through war. So Guldan brought all the orc clans together to do this and the Alliance has to find some way to stop the orcs from killing everybody. They rely on Medev, this all powerful mage guardian but it turns out he's been corrupted by the fel magic too. That's where things get interesting because he turns into a demon that looks like Illidan from Warcraft III-way cool! It's pretty entertaining once the ball gets rolling. The whole plot builds up slowly and works its way up to many climaxes. It was quite thrilling.

Another thing I'd like to say is that the weapons and armor looked terrific. It looks straight out of the games that I've played-World of Warcraft in particular. Seeing it all on the big screen took me back to my WoW playing days. The orcs had these massive cool hammers that just crushed the humans. And the humans had the same armor in the games as well as these cool swords. The orcs had wolves that they used for transportation as well as to fight. The humans had gryphons to fly on as well as horses. The orcs threw their horses at them and stuff. It was funny.

Lastly, one of the best parts of the movie was the credits when I heard the World of Warcraft game music playing. Nerd chills man! Go see this movie. Blizzard has really outdone themselves by creating a great movie for their beloved gaming series. This movie makes me want to resubscribe to WoW and start playing everyday even though I don't have the time for it. That's how good it was. I might sound like I'm being paid to talk about how great this movie was but that's just how cool it was. I don't think there will be any video game movies that are going to be better than this unless there's more Warcraft movies. Go check it out at a local theater near you. For the Horde!

I'm with the Maestro

Mozart in the Jungle is a show I think I wrote about but it was a super long time ago. I didn't do a review or anything, I think I just mentioned that I was watching it. So to recap, this is an Amazon Prime exclusive show about the life of Hailey Rutledge, a 26-year old woman living in New York trying to complete her dream of being an oboe player in the New York symphony. The show is based on the book with the same name. I tried reading the beginning of the book and I quickly got bored with it because all the girl does in the book is just keep having sex with all her teachers. Not a surprise in the classically trained conservatory world and it happens all the time in the show too. Thankfully, its not what defines the show like the how the book is. Let's talk about what makes this show great and a bit about season two.

Okay, so obviously the music is good. It's mostly the warhorses. Beethoven's fifth and all that jazz. But the music still sounds good when the musicians play. I don't know if they were really playing the music but it sounds fantastic to my somewhat musically trained ears. In addition, the acting in the show is phenomenal. There is a Mexican actor named Gael Garcia Bernal who just absolutely slays at acting. He plays a weird, musically-possessed conductor that cares deeply for the orchestra but just can't organize or run anything in the non-music world. Hailey becomes her assistant for a while. He's kind of like a real conductor probably. He's that good at acting. He makes you believe its all real. The old white conductor is also great. He does a great job of playing an old conductor who tries to write but turns out to be a washed up hack. The actress who plays Hailey is also great. Although sometimes it feels like you're watching an episode of Girls, I do believe that white girls act like that. Then there are the older musicians in the orchestra. They're all great. There's the hot cellist who turns out to be bi. There's the older oboe teacher for Hailey that turns out to be a bitch to her. There's the druggie percussionist. There's the good boy white bread white guy. There's the white guy violin soloist who's kind of the leader of the orchestra when the conductor isn't around. There's the actress who plays Gloria, who's chairman of the orchestra board. She's exactly what an orchestra leader should be. There are funny moments, dramatic moments, musical moments, and interesting mannerisms that get used throughout season one and two. This is what makes the show so great.

The ending of season 2 was pretty interesting. Basically its the same thing that's happening at my work between the company and our union. The musicians are fighting to get more rights and benefits and the people who run the orchestra aren't having none of it. Meanwhile, on a trip to Mexico Hailey gets into a sorta thing with the Maestro (Bernal) but doesn't tell anybody about it until she's drunk at a orchestra members party. Season two ends on pretty much a cliff hangar. Gloria (chairwoman of the orchestra) says she will resign if they give the musicians what they want and the Maestro says the same thing but it comes to a strange conclusion. I didn't really get it to be honest. Very unclear ending for season two but I think that's just because they want the viewers to wait until season three. And that won't be a while.

I first saw the show a long time ago but I only just finished season two last night. It was worth waiting for the second season and it makes me happy to see that there are great shows about music out there. It would be pretty cool if there was a show similar to this one but about jazz or something. Although I think this show is more classified as a comedy there are dramatic moments in it that you wouldn't find in many comedies. You should check it out on Amazon Prime or online. The show does feel like a luxury to be able to watch it because its only on Prime. It should be on cable TV or something because it would get the attention it deserves as a network show. One of the best music shows I've ever seen. Can't wait for season three. I've been writing a lot about shows it seems. The next post will most likely be about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows movie. I might go see the new Warcraft movie this weekend too. Watch this space.

Real robots and fake Indians

Master of none is this Netflix comedy/drama created by Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang. The show is about the daily life of Dev (played by Ansari), a 30-year old actor living in New York city. The beginning episodes of this show are so good I would say its amazing-possibly a masterpiece? However, the more you get into it, you realize its not what you thought it was. By this I mean I thought the show was like a straight hilarious comedy. But then they try to throw in this real life drama crap like having a relationship and stuff. Let me tell you about some of my favorite moments from the show.

There's this episode where Dev receives an email from some show people that he auditioned for. He wasn't suppose to get the email but it was somehow forwarded to him. It was just written that way. He finds out they said something super racist. "Lets see if he can curry our favor". Pretty fucking hilarious. Later, the white guy that said the racist comment tries to win over Dev by taking him to a Knicks game. The guy buys Dev some nachos and some young white kid eats some of his nachos. "Did that kid just eat my nachos? What the fuck." Dev tells the kid those are his nachos but apologizes once he realizes the kid was waiting for his absentee father that wasn't going to show up. Also, Busta Rythmes shows up at the game and apparently he's friends w/ the white guy who said the racist comment. Dev talks to Rythmes in private about the comment and Rythmes is all like,"Mmmm nope. Because Indians eat curry? That's some racist shit. You should play the race card." Obviously its more funny once you see the delivery of the vocal lines but that episode was definitely one of the best in terms of the comedic content.

There was another episode where Dev and his Asian friend go out with their dads for dinner. The Asian dude's dad's memories pop up of when he was a kid when the guys ask him what he did in Taiwan. Then it cuts to a super stereotypical scene of him as a kid in Taiwan with his pet chicken. And then his parents say they need some meat for dinner and that they want him to kill the chicken. The kid walks out with a knife and pushes the chickens head down and the scene fades. Great scene. Super racist and stereotypical but funny. Every immigrant has a chicken story like that it seems.

Then there's the episode where Dev sleeps with a married woman. The guy catches them at his house and he's all upset, as he should be. The guy's all like,"why the fuck are you still here!" And Dev's like,"I don't know. You said you were leaving. I thought it might be awkward if we were in the elevator together." True comedic gold with that scene. Also, there's the scene where the guy the woman is married to skips Dev in line at the ice cream shop. He points to a fat guy and says,"I'll have what Chubbs is having." Then he takes a bite out of the ice cream and throws it at the garbage can, yelling,"that's disgusting!" Super funny stuff.

My personal favorite part was when Dev was working on a black virus movie (lol) called the sickening and the virus first was exposed and he was auditioning on his laptop in a coffee shop all like,"Oh my god! The sickening! It's happening! Holy fuckin' shit!" Then this stereotypical big black woman that runs the coffee place says,"I don't know what it is you think you're doing but you can't do it here". There was even a guy who was afraid to leave the coffee shop because of Dev. That was a nice hilarious touch.

Okay, so now you know for sure that the show is super funny. However, at some point around the 6th or 7th episode (there are 10) Dev gets in a relationship with some chick that he used to know back in the day. He met her at some party and at first things don't click because she was still w/ her boyfriend but somehow she gets into it w/ Dev. I'm not into relationships and I don't enjoy watching shows about relationships. Their whole relationship is super cute but its sort of cringe worthy in terms of the acting and the overall characters. I know girls who are like the girl Dev was dating but its not necessarily something I would want to see in a show that I thought was suppose to be funny. I guess what I'm saying is that I wasn't into the lovey dovey stuff. It distracted from what I thought made the show great-the great delivery of the jokes.

I do believe there's going to be a second season for this show but you know w/ these Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming only series it does take them longer to create more seasons than regular TV networks. There is definitely something special about this show. At first when my brother was watching it when he visited I thought the show wasn't my thing. But Ansari is a hilarious and good actor. He isn't quite brilliant but he does know how to deliver the lines well. In this day and age to be a funny actor I think you have to be able to improvise better than reading and memorizing lines. I think Ansari is that type of actor. The modern day actor. He's good at what he does. Also, its good to see a brown guy be able to write and act and do it so well. We need more minorities in the spotlight and media. We're all over the music world but everywhere else we're pretty scarce.

If you like funny shows then you should definitely check this show out. Hopefully season 2 delivers some more great comedic material. Hopefully there is a season 2! I can talk about this show with my friends and quote the lines and we all get it and find it super funny. It's all on Netflix. Go check it out.

Streaming News

Good news everyone! (thumbs up if you get that reference) I finally started streaming like I said I would in earlier posts. I gotta say that it's a tough gig especially getting used to talking while playing. For some people its easier than others I believe. But I think I've got some good content on my page so far. Check out the highlights section on my channel-here 
My channels name url is twitch.tv/megaman1597

Anyways, I'm going to need to work on my delivery, entertainment factor, and a bunch of other stuff but so far I've got a basic overlay, good webcam placement, and my games are being streamed w/o any lag, something I was struggling with for a super long time. Now that I've got the gameplay running smooth as butter all I have to do is turn on the stream and let the magic happen. I'm working on making the magic happen but its tough getting viewers when nobody knows who you are. I post when I'm live on my twitter and on a twitch streamers facebook group but for the most part I get very few viewers. Which has me thinking I need to try out more games and see if I can get more of an audience playing other stuff than the the games I've been playing.

Check out the channel, let me know what you think. Hopefully I can get more viewers soon but at the same time I won't be trippin if it takes a while because I'm still going to be gaming anyways. The only difference is that I'll have my entertainment hat on. I'm taking this seriously and streaming pretty much everyday before work. Who knows, maybe I can make something of this and make a bunch of friends through twitch and stuff. I'm mostly doing this for the social factor as well as for myself because I actually like watching the broadcasts and gameplay, seeing what I did and could've done better in Overwatch, as well as creating highlights. So far the most fun thing has been finding the best plays or moments and making highlights of them. I'm definitely going to be enjoying that more in the future.

Thanks for checking out the channel and remember to send a follow on twitch.