Christmas of Goodwill

(Here's another sort of vlog or personal blog post for you)

Today was a terrific Christmas. I started the day off by waking up early at nine-thirty to play some Heroes of the Storm. Then I proceeded to play Destiny 2, which my brother got me for Christmas. Its a great science fiction fps mmorpg (that's a lot to say!) created by Blizzard Activision under Bungie, there's a lot of companies working together on this game. They did a pretty good job with the product. For an mmo that doesn't cost a monthly subscription its a fantastic game. Definitely worth the buy, or in my case worth trying out.

I got past the beginning areas and was playing Crucible mode with my brother. Crucible mode is Destiny's pvp (player vs player) combat system. We did this mode called quick play where we had to capture points and kill any enemies that tried to take them from us, basically king of the hill from Call of Duty, Team Fortress 2, or Overwatch, other popular fps's. I'll probably end up leveling my character mainly through pvp. Its fun. More on me getting sliced by an energy sword and dying instantly in another post.

After that we went to lunch at this Korean bbq place, except we didn't cook bbq. Instead, we had this clear broth beef stew with pot stickers, all these cold items, and this great hot steaming egg dish. It was excellent. My dad and I talked a lot about new music, avant-garde classical music. By then it was around three or four.

Later in the day I went to one of my best friends' house. We relaxed, exchanged gifts, played Smash 4 (he won most of the games), and watched a little of Metropolis by Fritz Lang and a bit of The Day the Earth Stood Still, both of them are two super old science fiction movies on Netflix. Metropolis is from 1926 and The Day the Earth Stood Still is from the 50's. I'll definitely want to finish both. I've already seen Metropolis but The Day the Earth Stood Still seemed quite interesting.

Approaching seven I went back home. My brother and I exchanged gifts and opened them by the fireplace. The gag gift I got that was also quite amazing was a framed picture of Mercy from Overwatch, a gift from James, my brother. Its quite good artwork. Its a head portrait but you can also see a little of her bodysuit armor as well as her characteristic halo and blonde hair. Sick.

In addition to that I got Starbucks coffee (I'm a coffee addict as of October), chipotle sea salt peanuts, a Lucio Pop figurine, a $25 Panda Express card, a Zelda wallet (from my friend), and the first science fiction cyberpunk novel written in the 1950's called The Stars My Destination. I think I scored the motherload. It feels really great to have people who care about me so much and got me great thoughtful and utilitarian gifts.

I called my mother and spoke to my younger brother. It was nice to hear their voices. I told my brother that he's really helped me get situated into reading more books and increasing my knowledge, improving my writing, and finding an audience for this blog. He's an inspiration although he can't take all the credit, (laughs). My mother seemed to be doing well and she said she was going to ship one of my guitars from Wisconsin out to me here. The guitar I'm speaking about is a heavily modified (Frankensteined) Godin guitar, a Canadian guitar brand. I got the guitar because I've seen John Mclaughlin playing Godins. It will be really cool to get that guitar out here eventually. I could use it for jams, recording, and band practices.

Yeah, things really turned out well on this Christmas day. It was a great occasion for good food, good friends, good family, and a good optimistic outlook for tomorrow. It couldn't get any better.

Games I wish I could play (if I had a hyperbolic time chamber)

So I've been reading a lot about games and posting a lot of blog posts. I figured I'd do a post about games I wish I could play if I had more time. Or money. Most of these I'll never play because games are expensive and money is hard to come by these days. Time is also hard to find these days too. Let's start this thing.

So the first game I would love to play is Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn and its expansion Stormblood. I've heard so many great things about this game and I've been watching a lot of game play on YouTube ever since I read reviews about how great it was. Apparently A Realm Reborn is pretty grindy (takes a long time to hit max level) but once you do the expansion (Stormblood) is what makes the entire game great. What I like about it is the art style. It's very colourful and there's tons of spells, combos, and abilities going on. Kind of like World of Warcraft (which I've been playing) but I think FF14 has more of a combo button activation feel. Much more so than WoW. But yeah my favorite thing about the game is the fact that its a Final Fantasy game and it looks so fresh, bright, and colourful. I would love to try this game out but buying A Realm Reborn, Stormblood, and paying for the subscription fee ($14.99/month) just isn't within my earnings. Would love to try like a trial or something. Maybe that's a thing?

Next, I would really like to try out PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). Its a massively multiplayer online battle royal game where you spawn in a server and immediately try to run around, survive, and kill enemy players. The idea of the game is pvp (with 100 players duking it out) with players going in by themselves or in small teams. The last player and/or teams alive wins. It's a modern era game with guns and stuff. Its currently the most popular game on Steam and its only in early access. Once the game is fully developed and launched it will become even better, and possibly even more popular. I've never played a game like this but I have been interested.

Next up is Epic Games' Fornite. The game launches later this month and its a Minecrafty tower defense game where you build forts and hold off waves of zombies with guns and such. You build forts, often at night and you try to survive. Anyone can see that its got a Left 4 Dead vibe with four hero characters surviving waves of zombies but I think this game is going to be much different than Left 4 Dead because it has a lot of other mechanics.

"It’s part Minecraft, in that you bust up trees and rocks with a pickaxe to build big fortresses out of big snappy pieces, and part tower defense in that zombies creatures make a beeline towards said base with the singular goal of destroying your creations. It’s also a third-person shooter with class-based co-op synergies and tons of loot—traps, weapons, heroes, and even NPC support characters. Fortnite is a lot of things. It’s too many things, really." (PC Gamer)

I'm interested in it if I ever had the chance. But with all the work I'm going to be doing its probably not going to happen unless some of my friends start playing it. It does sound interesting. Muy!

Then there's Destiny 2.  Anyone that knows anything about me will tell you that I'm a Blizzard fan. I am pretty excited about Destiny 2 coming out on the pc but I don't think I have the time for an mmo like that because I'm currently playing WoW. I actually played the original Destiny on Xbox 360 for a little while but I became bored because at the time the 360 was a dying console and was easily replaced by the Xbox One Destiny scene. I did think it was a great game. I just didn't stick with it because I don't like console games unless they're fighting games or single player rpgs (smash bros, mvc2, xenoblade, final fantasy vii, etc). I think Destiny 2 will be even bigger than the first one. Mainly because it will be on pc. Pc gamers are always looking for more shooters to play so an mmo fps will be like heaven to them.

Lastly, to keep this post short (because I could go all night) I'm gonna go ahead and say Hearthstone. I've been reading about the game here and there and its a pretty hip and happening game in the overall gaming community. I heard in the next expansion Blizzard's gonna make it so that every class in the game can turn into death knights. I'm a huge death knight fan (mained worgen death knight in WoW back in Cataclysm) so this is exciting news and it might just be the tipping point for me to actually start playing.

That's gonna do it for the games I wish I could play if I had more time. Time is of the essence. The thing is that other things need to get done (guitar playing, hang outs with friends, work) and there's only so much time in the day. Making effective use of my time is my primary directive at all times before work during the day. I even wake up earlier than I used to back in 2014, 2015, and 2016 because I realized I wouldn't get everything I needed done if I was sleeping in all the time. Sleep is good but getting things done is even better. 

 If only I had a hyperbolic time chamber!