What are you playing this weekend? End of April Edition

Hey, I wanted to take the opportunity tonight to talk about video games! Its been a while since I've posted about gaming. Here's what I've been playing lately.

Overwatch: After putting in about 500 hours into this game I'm really progressing into a much better Mercy player. The higher up the ranks you go the harder the game becomes but there's a very gradual skill ceiling so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. The great thing about being a Mercy main in competitive? Everybody loves you!

Team Fortress 2: I used to be so bad at TF2 it was kind of pathetic. I've got about 200 hours put in and now I'm an Uber-God Medic (laughs). You know you're good when you're the only medic in a 12 player game and you're top of the scoreboard most of the time. My friend Griff (steam name) has about 8,000 hours and sometimes I play with his hardcore TF2 buddies, which sometimes includes famous players from back in the day, like Vexon (check him out on YouTube). When I play with this great players being a beginner medic with like .1 of the amount of hours they have, I just have to sit back and play my best. After all we're just doing pub casual games. Its super fun.

Warcraft III Frozen Throne: So I had been talking about playing Warcraft III for a super long time and I'd always attempted 1v1 matches but didn't really get anywhere. I took my friend Brian's advice and started doing teams, mostly 4v4 games. Brian used to be one of the top ten Warcraft III teams games players back in the day. He still plays to this day. And I'm finding improvement in my playing although it is still a steep learning curve. The main thing I like about this game as opposed to Starcraft is that the units and battles are smaller, with more focus on the hero play, like a moba. Heroes of the Storm anyone? Its pretty cool. I main Undead, really focusing on learning the race as best I can.

Heroes of the Storm: This has been a mainstay game for me since technical alpha. Still enjoying it. I don't enjoy ranked mode so much but unranked draft is my main hangout. I play most of the healers but I also dps with Nova, Guldan, and Illidan. My main character is Lt.Morales, of course I'm always the medic.

Starcraft Brood War: So I finally got back into Brood War ever since I bought the new and visually improved Starcraft HD. You can pick it up for as cheap as 15 smeckles. The game looks like a brand new baby, a shiny new coat that improves upon its outdated pathing and visual discolorations. Like in Warcraft III I play team games with a focus on the Zerg race. For the Swarm!

Marvel Vs Capcom 2: I've been playing this game for a long time with my buddies in real life. We play this more than Super Smash Bros now, its become a cult classic. My main team is Spiderman, Rogue, and Doctor Doom with a rotating roster of those three sometimes mixed with Magneto, Jill, and Jin. Its a true fighting game and takes a lot of skill to master the infinite combos.

World of Warcraft: So I resubbed to WoW and I've been enjoying pvp a lot. Its super fun. I'm even leveling a low level character with my friend Griff and we're doing a lot of low level pvp. Its surprisingly fun although difficult. Pvp  in WoW can be super tricky, especially at max level on my Holy Priest. I think Holy Priest might be the hardest class I've ever played in the game. I've got my work cut out for me on this one. Especially because I mostly just log on to pvp.

Honorable mention: My friend Gordon's Super Nintendo and N64 collection. We've been playing a lot of classic video games from Nintendo at my friend's house. They have nostalgic value as well as amazing replay-ability.

I play a lot of games but I also try to play in moderation with a rotation of the games so it doesn't get too stale. This is going to be a great weekend for gaming!

Hey Joe, Musical Update

Hello ladies and gentlemen how has life been treating you all? Life has been great for me. I've been really refining my jazz guitar chops. Unfortunately the metal band I was in broke up, now its just me and the drummer still jamming together. Yesterday I jammed with a jazz drummer and we're going to keep getting together to work on standards. He said he didn't want to do a band with me but that he wants to continue jamming. His reasoning? Said I have to work more on my time, especially my swing feel. 

That was a bummer but I think I'm going to take this opportunity to play with a real jazz drummer and improve my chops, particularly my swing feel and time in general. The metronome has become a true friend now. 

I've improved a lot and my music mentor, a new music composer named Frank Abbananti (find his music https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=labor+studies+cd+baby) has been teaching me music from across the country, via email. He's taught me many things about chord voicings, music theory, and practicing to become better in general. We exchange email often and I think about everything he says as if we were in an academic setting. 

He sent me a new music (avant-garde) piece meant for me to perform on electric guitar with distortion. I played through it today a couple times and my dad said it sounds like Robin Trower if he did new music. Pretty great compliment from pops. He's going to send me more pieces to work on and perform and my goal is to record it for my Soundcloud. 

In addition, he said the next time I go to Chicago I can perform these pieces with him on a concert. 

Anyways, why am I sitting here when I should be practicing?! 

But before you go check out this cover of Hey Joe, the guitar solo was especially inspired. Dig the Jeff Beck reference at the end of the tune!

 https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe 

Electric Funeral, Music Politics

Here's our rendition of Electric Funeral with my buddy Martin on drums, and Thelma on groans :D https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/electric-funeral
I did a bit of vocals but not the full song. Enjoy!

I've been pretty busy practicing a lot of music, working on jazz guitar, jazz standards, as well as piano. I'm mostly just improvising on piano but I'm getting much better pretty quickly and I've only been playing since October.

The band situation is either getting worse or getting better depending on how you look at it. The drummer has improved a lot and I look forward to continue working with him for a long time. However, the singer might be leaving to join another band, depending on if he gets accepted after the audition process.

In the meantime we're still practicing together with the current singer. However, Martin (drummer) has found a new guitarist (named Stan) that also plays guitar and sings. I sing and play guitar too so if Alex (current singer) ends up leaving we have a good back up plan for the band.

I'm teaching my friend rudimentary rock bass and I'm hoping he can get good fast enough to play with us (our riffs aren't that difficult, just fast mostly).

As if that wasn't enough our current bass player can't play the songs the same way, he just improvises and changes it every time so we're going to have to let him go.

As you can see I'm dealing with a lot of politics! Me and the drummer are the unofficial leaders but man am I glad that he found another guitarist that can do vocals, that will make things a lot easier if Alex ends up ditching us.

Its a lot of pressure and I'm trying to stay positive about the whole metal band thing. One could take a look at my band and just say those guys are just fucking around.

As if that wasn't enough I'm also looking and talking to jazz musicians to play in a jazz setting. Hopefully I can do that soon because my heart is way more into jazz than metal, even if I do have a 7-string Jackson as my current main guitar. 

I'm going to continue to work hard and improve my chops, increase my repertoire and keep playing live at the open jam at Petie's Place, the bar on Reseda. I've got to keep pushing myself.