Krumpus Review

     Let me just say first of all that this movie has a great idea: a Christmas horror film. But how scary can it get when its only rated PG 13? It has a lot of restrictions on what it can and can't do. Needless to say there's nothing scary or gory about this movie and its a big letdown. Here, I'll explain why you shouldn't go see your movie, because you'd be wasting your money and you'll be very dissapointed.
     First off, this movie has a terribad (yes I said terribad, its so bad it's a thousand times bad) plot. It literally starts out like a great story with a dysfunctional family at Christmas arguing and carrying on. Then at some in the movie you realize that this isn't going anywhere. Then Krumpus shows up in a winter snowstorm and starts fucking shit up. He steals the kids, wrecks cars, and messes up their house. Krumpus isn't actually the big baddie in the movie, it's actually his crew that fucks shit up the most. There was this clown-like guy that had a mouth like the alien from Aliens, a bunch of elves (they called them that, but they were more like short gnomes to me), and a group of murdering computer generated gingerbread men. Once the kid who seems a little slow is stolen from the house and gone up through the chimney I had lost all interest in this movie and realized it was stupid. Because I knew eventually everyone was going to get murdered somehow, although this movie is so cheesy you don't actually see anyone getting hurt or any blood or anything. Instead they get grabbed through snow and things like that. They kept it PG 13 for the kids, but if this movie has the limits of an R rated film it could have been something great. They could have taken things for a darker scare, or at the very least shown some gore.
     The only thing that I can say that was good about this film was the way that Krumpus actually looked. He looked way cool. He sort of looked like an old man and he had these great hoofs. He was pretty tall and he seemed to have a generally cool attitude. What I can say is that next time my friends want to go to the movies I should have more of a say so we don't end up seeing crap. A much better movie we could've seen is the last Hunger Games movie, that would've been a thousand times better than Krumpus. The special effects in the movie were alright but other than the hoofs and the way Krumpus looked it was nothing special. The real story of Krumpus is more interesting than this movie. And also, the story of Krumpus from American Dad is also much better than this movie, and its a lot funnier too.
     Also, this movie has a lame ending. At the end when everyone gets killed and the kid is alone with Krumpus he wakes up and realizes it was all just a dream. Then, when he gets his Christmas gifts he gets this ornaments from Krumpus (from the dream), and then it fades out and shows us that Krumpus is watching his family sitting down at Christmas. Not too cool.
     Anyways, enough about Krumpus. If I had to rate this movie, I'd say 4 out of 10 because it doesn't really go anywhere and it doesn't hold your attention long enough to mean anything to you. When the characters get taken or messed with, I don't feel anything for them because I don't care for these characters, they're kind of just an asshole family that can't get along so who cares. This movie could've been truly horrific if they had just pushed the rating to R. Instead we get a kiddy safe Christmas horror flick. Okay for the kiddies. Terrible for us adults.
     

All I want for Christmas is You

     I want to first say Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Hanukkah. I know that this time right now is precious time for everyone to be with their loved ones, family, and friends. There's a lot to be happy about this Holiday season, especially if you're a gamer. While I do find the commercialism of Christmas to be shallow, this is our American culture, and damn, does it feel good to be us! While the shooting today has taken the media's attention, we must realize that these isolated incidents shouldn't bring us into despair.
      Anyways, I've always been a Christmas fan. When I lived with my mother in Wisconsin we always never really had a lot of money, but we still got great gifts for Christmas. I remember as a kid getting things like a Playstation and Gamecube. Good times. Nowadays I can buy whatever I want but its still the thought that counts when you buy gifts for people, not just the fact that you bought them stuff. What am I excited about this Christmas? Well there's a lot really. For one thing I'm extremely stoked for Starwars The Force Awakens. I've already made a plan to see it the first or second week that its showing. Most likely 2nd or 3rd week given my luck because of my work schedule. I'm super stoked because of the Starwars Battlefront III game is kind of being promoted super heavily because of the new movie. The game isn't as good as I thought it was at first, but I'm giving it a second chance and I'm enjoying it more. Looks like it wasn't money just down the drain. I would say that this is like 'thee' Starwars Christmas. Everybody and their families will be at the movies watching it this Christmas. Not only that, but they will be playing the new Battlefront III game as well. This feels like a very Starwars Christmas. And it feels awesome!
     I'm also looking forward to new game releases and game sales, particularly online sales through Steam. The main game I'm looking to pick up is Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U. That's one I think all my friends with a Wii U should pick up, especially because I've seen gameplay from streams on Twitch and it looks and plays amazingly well. The game features mechs (giant robots) in stereotypical Japanese anime fashion that you get to pilot and fight in. That's really all I'm looking forward to generally. Everything else are titles that won't be released for a while in the near to distant future. Some games I'm interested in are already out but I haven't bought them yet because I don't want to spend all my Holiday dollars on myself. I've got a family back in Wisconsin and a family right here in California, and I want to make sure I get all of them thoughtful/cool gifts this Christmas.
     Some of the things I'm interested in that won't be out till later next year is World of Warcraft Legion. Super stoked for the demon hunter class. I don't think I have enough time for WoW but why not test the waters and wake up earlier in the day just for gaming? Haha. Also excited for Pokken Tournament on the Wii U. It's a Pokemon fighting game similar to Street Fighter or Tekken. It looks amazing visually and I'm excited for the Pokemon character roster. My main will probably be Pikachu. The one that I'm excited most for is Overwatch. I finally got to play it today at a friends house. My second match he had me play the engineer and he told me the basics and I went 20 and 4! It was amazing, especially because I'm usually terrible at first person shooters, mostly because of bad eyesight I would say. I miss that small fleck or blur of an enemy player across the map and suddenly I'm dead. I'm a Blizzard fanboy so I will probably play the heck out of Overwatch. The beta is pretty good right now, and the game seems pretty balanced. I gotta say that all the heroes play differently, making for a unique FPS experience. This isn't your Battlefield, Destiny, Titanfall, or Battlefront III. This is like Team Fortress 2 except more specialized with the class types. It's pure amaze-balls.
     The rest of the stuff I was interested in is already out on sale on Steam and online. One thing I dislike about being a PC gamer is that all of our content is online, I still have a mentality that I should have game boxes and cases and CD's. I really love my Starcraft II Legacy of the Void Deluxe game box and all the stuff it came with. Talk about cool. Anyways, so I was still interested in Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain, The Witcher III Wild Hunt, Ark: Survival Evovled, Warhammer Vermintide, Undertale, Rocket League, and Garry's Mod. I'll probably end up getting Undertale when there's the Steam Christmas sale. I've heard nothing but good things about it. It seems like a nice different pace for an rpg game. I was also interested in maybe buying an Xbox1 with my older bro this Christmas but it depends. We don't really need it but it would just be cool to have for the online experience on a next gen console. I've already become a good online gamer with a lot of friends and the talking through headsets and all that, I just do it on my PC. PC is really the ultimate gaming machine, especially my computer because its pretty nice. But these new consoles are pretty good as well, although they will never replace my computer.
     Lastly, even though Christmas is still almost 3-4 weeks away I'm already wondering about what my schedule for work is going to look like. I'm hoping I'm off on Christmas but I'm sure if I don't request any days off around that time I'll probably get a pretty solid and righteous schedule, like my shift I got on Thanksgiving, it was only 12 pm to 4 pm. Not bad for a major holiday. I enjoy working at my current job. The people are great and I feel like I can even call some if not most my friends. Hope you're all having a great holiday work season. Gotta save up for all those gifts. Make this Christmas a good one. Happy holidays to you and yours.

The State of So Called Jazz

     I've been thinking about this topic for a long time so I figured I'd write a little piece with my two cents on the issue. The state of so called Jazz is not a very good state, in my opinion. I've heard all kinds of theories and ideas from people like Nicolas Payton, with his idea that Jazz should be called Black American Music, listened to great newcomers like Kamasi Washington from right here in my town of LA, and listened to extensive and informative interviews with some of the guys from the AACM; people like Roscoe Mitchell, Jack Dejohnette, and Henry Threadgill. What I can say about Jazz right now is that it feels to me like Jazz is dead/and or declining, becoming either lounge and smooth jazz fusion stuff (which is pretty much what LA jazz is all about). If you aren't playing lounge, smooth, or fusion you just don't have a chance to become a well known musician or band in Jazz. I feel like straight-ahead has become drowned out by lounge musicians, who's idea of jazz is to simplify and 'pretty up' the music. People would rather play for the crowd rather than go all out, reaching out for the hidden chord, or extensive real improvisation. A big name that's come up in the media is Kamasi Washington and when I first heard of him I thought,"This is great, a great Black saxophonist from right here in LA, getting fame for playing Jazz". But when I actually heard his music and what he was doing I realized that it ain't really Jazz and he ain't really improvising too much. For one thing he released an album called The Epic that is three hours long. Doing something like that will get you tons of attention, but for him I feel like it was overkill and that the songs ended up all sounding similar-with fuzzed out wah wah bass, 70s Miles Davis era fusion keyboards, and very light-weight horn arrangements. Basically fusion. LA does a lot of fusion. I've seen a lot of it up close and personal at a club in Studio City, called the Baked Potato.
     I really dig the stuff that those musicians and bands do but I wouldn't call it Jazz, its more like rock music with a little bit of improv. I've been to some great shows at the Baked Potato. None of the guys that play there are overwhelmingly famous and its a great experience to watch a band right in front of your face in a small venue. I would say that hardly any 'real' Jazz groups ever play the Baked Potato, yet its considered one of LA's primer Jazz clubs. Now, you're probably wondering who made you the Jazz police? Well, even though I'm a youngin' I consider myself something of a connoisseur of Jazz and I feel like Jazz has to be defined in a certain way, because in today's world Jazz means something different to everybody.
     Here's what I think Jazz is. Jazz is a style of music developed back in the 1920's and earlier, that has a rhythm called swing, with harmonies based on African, modal, and European sounds. But is not limited to just this classification because Jazz had its greatest and most important evolution last in the late 1960's when musicians like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman created the idea of just playing, sometimes with no rhythm and no set melody, instead just 'going for it'. This lead to a more extensive style that I would dub collective improvisation. The musicians were playing off of each other rather than just a head of a standard, or the changes of a tune. This is what Jazz means to me. A lot of the musicians doing traditional (straight-ahead) Jazz have become older and they've since gone to a more lounge type of playing environments. Whereas the collective improvisers (aka Free Jazz musicians) are playing really anywhere that will have them. I've seen Free Jazz musicians play everywhere from churches to one room buildings in New York to the Library of Congress..
     In an interview with a guy from the Library of Congress Henry Threadgill said it's hard for a musician to make a living and find places to play these days. I would imagine its even more difficult because Threadgill plays such a wild and non-commercial style of Jazz. He basically said that to make a living he ends up playing the same areas over and over again for a while, which for him was in Philly and around New York. You could say that people like Kamasi Washington bring more popularity to Jazz, which is a great thing! But if all the people who are turned onto Jazz think Jazz is like Washington's Jazz they will be sorely mistaken and mislead. But overall it's great to have young people in Jazz who are "spreading the gospel". That's the way I see it. If you're playing music that's related to Jazz, you're helping the cause.
     In the beginning of this rant, I made it seem gloomy and that Jazz hasn't been doing so well. Well sometimes I realize that today's current Jazz artists are just "coasting", which I don't blame them for, because they have to make a living. For example, recently I was checking out some work from guitarist Bill Frisell and he's doing tunes from movies with a young singer, but the singer is so white-bread that everything sounds like something you'd hear in a lounge. Very disappointing. And it was especially lame because they even did "Gold Finger". Not only that but today my dad said he saw the singer Buchelli on TV with some famous Jazz pianist and they were doing tunes from movies as well. It was kind of funny that he told me that. But hey, not all current Jazz is lame and disappointing. Last year around Christmas I saw Brad Meldau's Trio and the Bad Plus. That was a real eye-opening Jazz concert for me. It was probably the most 'authentic' Jazz concert I'd seen since I saw McCoy Tyner play some years before when I lived in Wisconsin. The Bad Plus is probably the best Jazz band you could introduce to your friends that say "I don't like Jazz". They will just eat that shit up. All their works are catchy, memorable, and have great improvisation, especially the latest stuff with Joshua Redman, Dewey Redman's son. They sometimes dabble in playing pop and rock songs, which is cool. In addition, I've seen some great stuff online from saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son. I even met one of Coltrane's other sons at my work! It was pretty sick. Anyways, I feel like real Jazz is something that's closer to Free Jazz, which is probably my favorite style of Jazz, other than the straight-ahead stuff of the 1950's and early 1960's. Sometimes I tend to like everything and say "It's all good". But in actuality, when it comes to Jazz, its not. You have to know what to listen for. And you have to realize that even the best of the best have bad nights. I think that with government backing and schools giving instruments out to young kids, Jazz has a bright future. Peter Brotzmann said Jazz will stay strong as long as it "stays away from the bullshit electronics". I've heard other musicians say why would a musician play Jazz if they can make more money playing another style of music? Jazz has a very iffy future. One thing that is problematic is the fact that just to see a Jazz concert in this day and age costs a lot of money, money that a lot of middle and lower income people don't have. Jazz is in some ways becoming like classical music-something of musical elitist snobbery. On the other hand Free Jazz musicians don't play their music for free, they expect to get paid. I think the government should do more to encourage Jazz education in young students and grants for musicians who are keeping the art alive. After all, Jazz is America's greatest art form.
    

Thanksgiving-Battlefront III-Legacy of the Void

     So Thanksgiving was just on Thursday, it was a great celebration with me and my folks. I hope it was a great experience for you all as well. I did work on Thanksgiving but thankfully it was only for a good four hours and then I was the hell outta there! Haha, but seriously, it sucks working on Holidays and I'm going to try to get off on Christmas and New Years. Check out that cool anime Starwars pic I found online, it's pretty cool. The idea of a female Jedi taking on Vader just gives me nerd chills man! Anyways, so work was aight and when I got home I just relaxed and played a few games and waited for dinner. Dinner was good. We had our "traditional" Chinese turkey that we get from a Chinese restaurant called A&W Seafood down on Reseda. It's a great place and they do a great job with turkey, cooking it in a way different style than the really really overly dry American way of cooking turkey for Thanksgiving. I really can't eat a traditional American style turkey anymore because this Chinese turkey just tastes so much better!
     Later that night around 11 30-midnight me and two friends went out and got some cool stuff for Black Friday. We ended up going to my old job-Fry's Electronics and Best Buy. We bought some stuff at Fry's. My friend got the Wii U bundle that comes with Splatoon and Smash 4 for $249. I got Starwars Battlefront III for $60. And my other friend got this fighting game arcade stick that was retailed $170 online on Amazon and stuff for only $30 because Fry's put it in the wrong spot on the floor so when they said it was $170 he showed them that there was like ten of them in a spot with a price tag of $30, and he was able to get it for that price because Fry's mislabeled and put their stuff in the wrong spots. He even said that the women helping him out was a little ticked off that he said that it was only $30 not $170. I feel like in a way he bamboozled Fry's but hey Fry's is at fault because they mislabeled their shit and put it in the wrong spot, misleading customers. I used to work at Fry's and I talked to a couple of my old friends, acquaintances, and employees. It was cool. It was good to see them still doing the same thing they were doing 2 years ago. I like when people have longevity in hobbies and work.
     I didn't play Battlefront III until the next day after it installed (took a while, even on my monster PC). But when I did get to playing it I couldn't help but feel that this game is just a Battlefield game with a Starwars skin. Don't get me wrong, the graphics and visuals in this game are stunning, especially on the PC version. But the game-play is simple, with mostly firing from the hip being the best way to shoot. All the guns look and fire the same red lasers, although at a different fire-rate. The game is so easy to play that I don't think it takes much skill to be great. I think Call of Duty or Halo is much harder to be great at than this game. I guess the first word that comes to mind when I think of Battlefront III is shallow. There's no campaign so there's no real story or point to all the fighting you're doing, its just mindless killing and shooting. I don't care about playing some no name rebel or empire trooper. I care about the actual characters from the movies, and possibly new characters that could have been created in this game. I wanted to return the game but I'm stick with it because I bought it at Fry's, and you can't return a game you already opened. And you can't return it through Origin because I didn't buy it online. I have two options. Never play this game again, or give it another shot, trying out more of the game modes that the game has to offer. If I had to rate this game based on what I've seen and played so far, I would give it a hard 7 out of 10, mostly just because of the visuals. The music is terrible and the game modes seem to get boring because there's only a small handful of maps. Also, they make you pay an additional $50 for dlc content that includes more maps and game modes. Thankfully, because I bought it at Fry's it actually came with the dlc somehow. Casual gamers will love this game because of how simple and easy it is to play. But for the hardcore fps guys, this game won't cut it for them.
     On Friday, other than trying out Battlefront, I beat the Starcraft II Legacy of the Void campaign. All I can say is 'my life for aiur!' It was a great ending to an epic space opera. The ending was a little cheesy with the chtulu like creature being the Xel Naga and it giving all its energy to Kerrigan, and she turned into this angelic-like being that was suddenly strong enough to kill Amon, a dark god that was the game's endgame villain. I enjoyed the campaign thoroughly and tried to get all the achievements. I think I'm at something like 50% achievements, which ain't good but it ain't bad either! I've always been more of multiplayer Starcraft player, I never even beat the original Starcraft or Broodwar campaigns. I heard those weren't that great anyways. What awaits me now for Starcraft is the Legacy of the Void multiplayer experience. I haven't gotten ranked or played any matches but I feel like Terran might be really weak in Legacy and I'm not sure if I'm ready to play a turtle race like Terran when Protoss and Zerg have such cool new units. So when I start playing multiplayer I might switch back to Zerg, which was my original race going back to Broodwar in middle school. I only switched to Terran at the end of Wings of Liberty because the guys in my clan on battlenet said it was the easiest race I could play with minimal micro and still do pretty well. I feel like they've been wrong but I actually fell in love with the Terrans, even though I don't consider myself a turtle-up kind of player. I'm more aggressive which maybe makes me feel like I'm more suited for Zerg. For the swarm!
     Music has been good as well. I've been practicing a bit, mainly trying to focus on playing songs rather than just improvising or learning chord voicings. I've really been listening to this guy Henry Threadgill, a great alto saxophonist, composer, and improviser. I really dig his new band called Zooid. All the cats I really dig and admire are sax players; people like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Peter Brotzmann, etc. Even though I'm a guitar player, I'm a big sax guy. I might actually buy one someday. I had a buddy at work who was going to sell me his but its kind of been forgotten that I've mentioned it to him. I still want it. Maybe that'll be my Christmas gift to myself. Can you imagine me with a saxophone? Talk about bizarre.
     Its been good to get back to writing. It's been so long since the last post. I'll try to keep em coming, and get back to writing music stuff eventually. This blog was originally meant to only be for music but now its like a gaming blog. I play too many games, and eventually I'll have to stop because it gets in the way of guitar playing and playing music, my main love in life. But I digress. Peace out cub-scouts.
    

Update 1.12

     Hey, whats up readers, fans, family, and just general internet peeps? I haven't written in a long time. I guess its fitting because there's been just so much going on that its a bit overwhelming on where to start and what to write about. For one thing I've been working a lot, hanging out with friends, playing a lot of games, and watching a ton of anime. I just finished Hunter x Hunter, the longest anime that I've ever watched. It has a staggering 148 episodes. I'm not going to be watching any super long anime anytime soon. I'm going to go back to the regular 24 episode stuff for a while. My regular group of friends has been super cool lately and we've been enjoying each others company, playing a lot of Project M and Smash Bros Melee. We all kind of quit playing Smash 4 because we realized the game is kinda lame in comparison to Melee and PM. I still like it but I haven't played it in like a month or two now. In addition, I've been reading books. I just got Yngwie Malmsteen's biography Relentless. Malmsteen is this neoclassical rock guitarist from the 80s that inspires me a lot, although I don't really play too much like him. But I've tried. Also, I got this comic book Saga from the library as well and Neal Stephenson' book Seveneves, a cool science fiction novel. Saga is a cyperpunk opera in a world of magic and space. I'm off the next two days so I'll spend a lot of time reading all this stuff. In addition to that, there's the book Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, this is the book that inspired the tv show Mozart in the Jungle, a great show that I've been watching on Amazon Prime. The book is a little dry in comparison to the book but it might prove to be good if I read farther in. 

     Anyways, I'm pretty good at Project M and Melee. I would say I'm way better at PM and Melee than I am at Smash 4. Also, I've met some real life friends at the store I work at. We've been gaming online together and chatting with our headsets. Its been fun and its great to game with people you know. Lately, we've been playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft. Tomorrow Starwars Battlefront 3 comes out so I'm looking forward to that but I probably won't buy it right away because I just bought Starcraft II Legacy of the Void, the special edition that comes with a big ole' fancy box and extra cool stuff. Until I beat that game and enjoy it to the fullest I probably won't be buying anymore games. But the plan is to eventually get Battlefront 3, Black Ops 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain. I'll probably get all these next year as the year goes later on. I don't expect to get them all anytime soon or anything. Also, there's Fallout 4! Games for the win. Starcraft has been amazing so far. I plan on finishing the game sometime this week if we get the time to play. 

     I've been listening to Michael Romeo, the guitarist from Symphony X. Symphony X is one of my favorite metal bands. They don't rely on satanic imagery or lyrics, just straight up beast metal riffs and fascinating solos full of neoclassical melodic-ism and technique. I just got their latest album, Underworld, it's nowhere near as great as the stuff they were doing in the late 90's or early 2000's but the songs are good and the guitar playing is top notch. Romeo is one of the best in the business and he's not even as famous as Kerry King is. His style reminds me of Malmsteen but he holds back more and plays more to fit the songs rather than just to show off at every possible second (Malmsteen's signature). 

     And how about this attack in Paris? It sickens me that people commit these heinous acts of murder. I think as Americans and the general public has become desensitized to terrorism because it happens every single day. Just not here in America. It happens in the Middle East so we figure we're safe from these kinds of things. The truth is that with the rise of Isis and terrorism in general there may be no place safe suicide bombers and the like. We have to fight back but I'm not exactly sure how. Drone strikes aren't working. Sending troops on the ground isn't working. Maybe we can't fix every problem in the world. Maybe we have to let those countries handle it themselves. I am not in favor of troops on the ground. That will just create more terrorists, as it happened with the creation of Isis. The truth is that we may never be able to defeat terrorism, partly because we created it. If we defeat Isis some other terrorist group will just rise to take its place. Cut off one head and two more will pop up (Hydra reference). One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. (Farkaan reference). Just my thoughts on the subject. Let us pray for Paris. Amen.

Update 1.11

     Life has been good. I've been working a lot of hours and making that bread. I've been saving a lot and getting some cool things as well. Like I recently bought a new wallet, a white stretchy belt, a white musicians hat (I like the color white), and a Nintendo Gamecube is on the way. I'm excited about getting the Gamecube because my little brother sent me our copy of Smash Bros Melee not too long ago, and I would like to play it for fun as well as to practice technical skill like wavedashing and stuff, which I need to practice for Project M, a Super Smash Bros Brawl mod that I play with my friends quite often. I have a small old crt tv that I can play it on when I'm chilling in the backyard. Its going to be perfect for those lazy days just sitting around in the backyard. It will be made better with friends! Melee is worth around $200 brand new and you can sell it for about $50 used so its a pretty rare game to have the actual CD. Most people just illegally download the game on their PC's and just call it a day. But why pirate when you can actually play the game on the system it was meant for. I believe there's probably input lag if you play emulated games on your PC using a controller through usb connections. Just my opinion, I don't know if its true. Anyways, so work has been kicking my ass lately but in the end its worth it to have the money to save for the uncertain future that I have. My job has really sustained me lately and I'm grateful to have the job I have. I've been in the service industry (retail) all my career, sometimes its great and other times its not pretty, but in the end we all must serve someone.
     Anyways, I've also been watching a lot of anime and amazonprime tv shows. I'm super into Hunter x Hunter, and I've been enjoying JoJo's Bizarre Adventures. Also, I've been watching this show based on this book about the Manhattan school of Music (where my step-mother went to college). The book is called Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music and the show is about classical musicians in the New York Symphony and all the shenanigans they get into. Its labeled as a comedy but I consider it more of a drama type of show because of the lack of funny jokes(at least to me it ain't funny). I really enjoy it because it focuses on many characters but the focus point is this 26 year old girl who's like the Hendrix of oboe, but instead of playing in the Symphony Orchestra, she's just the Conductor's assistant doing like everything from scoring music to making strange teas. She kind of reminds me of myself in a way because I'm a great guitar player but I haven't done anything or made it anywhere with my music, despite putting in a lot of time and effort on the instrument. I highly recommend all three of these shows. They're hype. It's fun staying up late into the wee hours sitting at the edge of bed, wondering whats going to happen next. But doing this is just being a consumer, and I want to be a creator! Which leads me to my next point.
     I've been keeping up with my guitar lessons but sometimes guitar practice escapes my grasp. Right now its because I'm trying to study the driving handbook so I can take the written test and learn how to drive. I'm pretty old and I still can't drive. And I live in California. You have to drive here otherwise your life is very contained to where you live and where you work. Part of the reason why I have money is that I don't own a car. The plan is that a friend is going to take me and another friend to the DMV on the 10th and take the written test then. Hopefully it all works out and I pass the first time.
     Now that its November, my favorite Holiday is coming up, Thanksgiving! Time for that Chinese Restaurant turkey! Not only that but Black Friday is at the end of the month. I'm going to try to get some of my buddies to go out to some stores and see whats up. Places like Fry's, Best Buy, and Gamestop seem like logical options. Not only that but Starcraft II Legacy of the Void is coming out in a few days. I've been looking forward to that for months. Happy Halloween! Hope everyone had a good Halloween. Apparently my step-dad said we only had like 5 trick or treaters this year, but it included some hot 20-something babes. I ended up working late into the night on Halloween but thankfully I closed the store with a friend so it wasn't so bad. The Holidays are coming. I'm prepared for turkey, Black Friday, new video games coming out, guitar sales, Christmas, and New Years. I'm thinking about trying to get a 7-string guitar during the Holidays. I'm interested in the range for jazz chord voicings and metal stuff. That gothic Starfox picture is pretty sick. Peace.

Update 1.09

     It's been a while now since I've written. I've been busy enjoying life, gaming, practicing the guitar, learning jazz music, listening to a lot of jazz, and working. I just ended a three day weekend off from work, it was quite exhilarating! The blog has kind of become a personal space for me online yet somehow I have gotten more readers despite not writing about music-particularly jazz, which I was doing some months ago. It's been a while but sooner or later I'll be back to writing jazz posts, for now I'm mainly going to continue doing personal posts and talking about gaming and general life stuff. So in terms of what's been up with me lately, I have been doing a lot of intense gaming sessions, anime watching, amazon prime watching, guitar practicing, and working late in the evenings. It's quite the life, feel free to walk a day in my shoes, you will see the light my brotha. Anyways, here's what I've been playing.
      It's a 2D retro-style indie game that's inspired by Smash Bros called Rivals of Aether. That's a screenshot of the game above. It's in early access at the moment on Steam for only $15, a really good price for a game that is already pretty solid. Right now there are only six available characters and you can play online or in local connections with people. The game features animals that all have special unique moves and abilities. There's a lion that has fire attacks and his recovery is just like Foxs' from Smash 4. Then there's a bird with kungfu attacks who's pretty reminiscent of Falco from Smash 4. There's a big rock bug creature that throws rocks at you and breaks them on you. Then there's a guy (not sure what he is) that can stir up dirt in the air and engulf the screen with it, and then he can turn into two, making it hard to figure out which one is the real him. Then there's a squirrel that uses punching gloves, he seems like the weakest link right now. And lastly we have a water type dolphin creature that reminds me of the Pokemon Vaporeon. He has some water teleporting abilities and bubble move that reminds me of Squirtle. The game-play is so reminiscence of Smash Bros, but mainly Super Smash Brothers Melee because the game-play is smooth, fast, combo-intensive, and requires a bit more technical skills than the average Smash 4 player. The game even has wave dashing! The game gets an instant 10 out of 10 from just for being a great Smash Bros style game that is still unique by itself. The characters in this game are so unique and interesting and combos are so nasty that its hard to say its just a Smash copy.
     The thing that makes this game so great is that the combos are devastatingly nasty. They are absolutely disgusting. You will get bodied so hard in this game unless you know how to get out of combos. At the same time, you will absolutely crush somebody's soul if you get them in a string of great combos. All it takes is perfect positioning and you can get in some insane combos. I did it today actually. I went on like a 20 win streak earlier and I had no idea how I was doing it honestly. All I was doing was getting in the right spots and attacking at the right times. I guess that's really all you need for this type of beat em up game. The controls are easy to learn and simple. My friend that got me into the game showed me a way to play the game with the Gamecube controller using the Wii U Gamecube adapter on my PC. So the game even plays exactly like Smash Bros! It's awesome. Do yourself a favor and buy this game. Once it gets out of early access there will be more characters to play and even a story mode for the players. In addition, the internet connection seems pretty solid when playing with others online. There were a few times where I had some bad lag problems but they were very rare. I've come to the conclusion that the game actually has a great internet connection for a game that's still in beta. My favorite character is the lion because he reminds me of Fox, but also because he seems to have some nasty combos that are easy to improvise with. This is the kind of fighting game that you have to improvise with, making up combos and attacks to do on the spot, much like Smash Bros but its still different enough that I can say its not like Smash Bros too at the same time. If you get what I mean? I feel like this game is going to blow up become a big thing. I'm glad I'm apart of the community for this game too. All the guys in the SoCal Smash scene are playing this game too right now so I have plenty of people to play online against. My brothers' friends are also into this game as well.
     So Rivals has been pretty cool. I've also been putting in work on Heroes of the Storm. I haven't been doing that well in Hero League but its all good. I've been playing it with friends chatting on Skype and also using this new chat browser program called Discord, I gotta say that I really love the Discord program, its neat. Try that program out, you can create your own server and chat with people just using your web browser. A lot easier than using Skype. It's been fun playing online and actually communicating with people instead of just sitting alone online and just typing out stuff to peeps. Makes the game much more enjoyable. I've been playing a lot of Lt. Morales, Uther, and Artanis in Heroes lately. I guess you could say they are my go to and best heroes to play. I feel like right now Heroes of the Storm is kind of in a lull because everybody's been playing it to death and some of the heroes just aren't all that interesting. There's also the fact that people just take forever to kill in Heroes unless you have your whole team of five focusing one person-which is super rare, especially in team fights.
      In addition, I've also been watching a lot of anime. Mainly Hunter x Hunter. My friend turned me onto the show and now that I've subbed to Crunchyroll, its a joy watching anime late into the night commercial free. I'm also into JoJo's Bizarre Adventures too, which is, aptly named so because it is, well, bizarre. I would say that I'm so into anime that I might as well consider myself Otaku, which sounds horrible and bad, but my friend claims that even though I don't consider myself otaku, that I am anyways. Its a bad term in Japan but I guess being otaku in America is a little less bad meaning because nobody really knows what it means here. I would say I just love anime, Japanese video games (Super Smash Brothers), and I play Japanese guitars (Jackson Dinky w/ Floyd rose).
     Also, I've been watching stuff on AmazonPrime. I recently became a subscriber so its been fun watching Man in the High Castle, Workaholics, and this show about college at the Manhattan School of Music called Mozart in the Jungle.
      That's all for now. Sleep awaits. Did you get that Slayer reference?