Putting the Pieces Back Together

Chloe Price is a character that was first introduced in Life is Strange back in 2015.  She was the player character's, Max, best friend.  In Life is Strange Before the Storm the player takes over as Chloe 3 years before the events of the first Life is Strange.  You get a glimpse into why Chloe acts that way she does towards Max and why she is so determined to find out what happened to Rachel Amber.  Oh and only the first episode is out so far. Why would I say I relate to Chloe though.  I've talked about Life is Strange in the past and have mentioned how I related a lot to Max.  But Chloe is different.  She's damaged.  Really damaged.  She does what she does because in reality she doesn't really know what to do at all.  She lost her dad, she lost her best friend, her mom is dating someone that she does not agree with at all, and she's just kind of shut herself out. She interacts with people, but on a very basic level.  She wil...

Well, since my stream tonight was nothing but a scene blocked from the PS4, awesome feature *rolls eyes*, I figured I'd at least write something again.  In a few weeks I'll be "running" a 5k with some friends.  In preparation I've done some couch to 5k steps to try and get me somewhat ready for it.  It has not worked. I hate running.  I have no ability to control my pace when I'm running by myself.  It's go hard or walk.  I'm not in a full sprint or anything, but I don't have a jog.  I honestly don't know how to jog. This leads to me burning out before I can finish the 30 minutes.  Part of me thinks I should just run at my own intervals, but then again that requires me to want to run.  I don't. It doesn't help that it's been hot.  Nothing worse than running when it's too hot.  It's hard enough to breath normally while running, adding heat just makes it worse.  So, I've kind of stopped.  It doesn't help that the mu...

This is more of a social experiment for myself.  Something that I have a hard time doing is talking to people.  I tend to think that I'm being an annoyance whenever I want to start a chat with someone just to ask them how they are doing.  I tend to just not talk to most people then. So my experiment is to use Facebook, the only real place that I have any friends, and to use my posts as conversation starters.  I'm starting simple: tell everyone have a good day or ask how their day went.  I don't expect people to reply every time.  I don't expect a lot of people to respond at all. But that's not the goal.  The goal is to try and get my brain to understand that if you ask a question that people will respond.  And to not be offended if no one responds.  I might even get some fun little conversations out of it, which would break any expectation that I have with this. Hopefully it helps me.  Maybe it'll help someone else.  I think it's...

Everyone hates getting sick.  Usually when I get sick it lasts for at least a month.  Usually sinuses are the thing that gets messed up for me the most.  But I tend to not get sick that often. *knock on wood* Today I wasn't feeling well, but it was different than norma.  The head was just not there.  I've been feeling off for a few days now.  Finally got to the point today that I just had to take a sick day.  Woke up and was light headed from the beginning.  Fell down a few times and just had to give up. Slept for most of the day and finally started to feel normal again.  I can't tell if it's the weather, maybe allergies, or maybe the sleeping pill that I usually take that just has messed me up.  Going to try going without it for awhile to see if that improves things. It's also a good reminder of why I enjoy having a full time job that allows for paid sick days.  I used to go into work when I was feeling like crap before, just be...

When you write a post about history and then lose it, is it just repeating history to write about history again?  Well, probably, but I'm still going to write about it, although I'm going to keep it more brief. When in school, history was boring.  Not because history itself is boring, but because they tended to teach the same history over and over again.  It doesn't change, so why teach it again and again?  The biggest offender was American history.  Nothing wrong with it, it just spans such a brief part of the overall history of the earth that putting such a big focus on it is a waste. I know it's where I'm from, but expand the horizons a bit.  There is so much to teach and learn from.  The one part that they barely even touched when I was in school was WW2.  And of course that is the one area of history that I'm interested in the most. I enjoy learning about the events that led up to, occured during and the fallout after the war ended.  ...

One of the things that was a big part of my life after high school was joining a Call of Duty clan.  We get high speed internet and my parents bought me a computer, so naturally I wanted to try playing some games online.  I tried in the past to play Medal of Honor online, but that was a slide show.  When I got cable internet, I decided to try CoD. I found a server by chance and started playing with them.  They had recruitment messages in the server message so I decided why not.  They had a boot camp program that you had to go through as they were a military style clan.  The first boot camp did not go well.  While I was someone just goofing around, they were more serious about things.  I was kind of a dick.  I learned to behave and soon graduated.  I went got to the point that I was in charge of a squad as a Corporal and had kept our squad active, all three of us, while the rest of the platoon was inactive. I had thought that at some p...

As someone that works on a website, user experience is something that I have to be concerned about.  Thankfully, I work with a designer that focuses a lot on it so I just have to follow what she says.  Makes my job a lot easier. Even though it's a part of my job, it was actually a video game that has me writing about it.  A lot of games have an easy mode for people that are either bad at games, or rather not get frustrated while playing them.  I tend to skew towards the later one, but I'm not the best at playing games either. The games that I am the worst at is fighting games.  I've always sucked at them, even when I was a kid playing Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat at the arcade in the local mall.  The only one that I've been "good" at is the Dead Or Alive games, but that's because button mashing can get you far in those games. It's also why I don't play fighting games online.  I have better things to do then get destroyed by people that are ...

Growing up and even to this day, I never really read comic books.  I've owned some throughout my life, but never a lot.  I probably own more now just because of how many comic movies there are that I do get interested in reading more about them. However, I did grow up during a great time for comic book animated shows, the 90s.  X-Men, Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etc.  I watched them all.  X-Men was may favorite.  Still is to this day.  Batman probably ranked second. I just went through 3 comic movies in the past 24 hours.  Logan, Batman vs Superman, and Suicide Squad.  I had see the last two, but hadn't seen Logan.  Logan was phenomenal.  Being a huge Wolverine fan since I was a kid, seeing a violent adult Wolverine movie was what I have been waiting for.  A good way for them to send Hugh Jackman's Wolverine off. The other two are movies that aren't that great.  Batman vs Superman is ok, but way too long.  I've al...

One of the weirdest hard things in my life is this urge to develop websites.  I mean, it's my job and all, but that work is controlled.  I'm doing it to maintain and improve an existing site with set platforms and code bases.  It can be a little restricting. Its why I try to sometimes recommend things that are a little newer and not used by everybody and their grandmother.  I understand why it won't be used, and I tend to bring those things up as a bit of a joke knowing it won't happen, but what if?  But it makes sense, you go with what everyone is using because it has a lot of support, documentation, and most developers will be able to figure it out. Then there are the times when I stare at something as I'm trying to fix something and it reminds me of an almost OCD feeling of something being off.  I bring it up after letting it go a long time ago, and sometimes it pays off.  Maybe if everyone likes it I will finally be able to look at it and not hav...

Remember when you were a kid and you didn't want to go to bed?  How foolish we all were.  Sleep is great.  It's one of the most precious things in life.  And yet, it is also a giant waste of life if you really add up all the time that you spend sleeping. But that's really the only downside of sleep.  Sleep is a thing I do a lot of.  I don't take naps, I sleep.  I can't call them naps, because they last for hours.  When it comes to the work week, sleep is precious. And that's why I'm writing this.  It's 10 at night, and usually right now I'm in bed having watched an episode of Castle and maybe an episode or two of Always Sunny.  But not tonight.  Nope I am awake for at least another hour and a half. Why?  Work.  Not because I'm worried about it, but because I actually have to do it.  Ok, I'm also a little worried about it.  Late night deployments are rare.  But they are done because whatever the change is ...

I read an article of Friday that was titled " The Purpose of Life is to Be a Nobody ".  Feel free to read the article as it has some good points to it.  The basics are that we are in this grand universe and that thinking that you are special only puts too much pressure on you and actually holds you back from living life to its fullest.  Basically the less you care about things the more able you are to just live. This isn't a bad way to think.  One of the things that I've tried to do is to care less about what others actually think about me.  If they're going to be a part of my life then they will have to accept me for me just being me.  I've made friends that way, so it's not like it doesn't work. When I go out, and by that I just mean leaving the apartment, I do my best to not care what anyone that I meet thinks about me.  Chances are I'll never see them again.  No one is ever going to see me always at my best.  Heck, I don't even know wha...

Yes, life is strange, but that's not what this is about.  Nope, this is about a video game.  A video game that if life was really like it would probably be pretty cool, and really depressing. Life is Strange is about a character who finds out that she can rewind time and later travel through time using photos.  It's a "adventure" game in the like of The Walking Dead or any other Telltale games.  The main difference is that if you make a choice you don't like, you can rewind and pick something else. But the actual game part doesn't really matter.  No, it's the story that hits hard.  There are issues about bullying, suicide, drugs, abuse, and other teen angsts.  The game is dark and can be rather depressing.  And it's great. Most games won't touch a person throwing themselves off of a building.  This game does it and lets you try to convince her to not jump.  You can fail.  Those rewind abilities don't work during this scene. ...

I have a lot of games in my "backlog".  Not even taking into account my Steam library, which I think I was over 600 games of which I played very few of them, I still have so many console games to play.  If I was smart I'd just stop buying them and play what I have, but where's the fun in that. It doesn't help when sales come on that allow me to buy a bunch of games that I never got to play back on the 360 or at least never got to get as far as I wanted to.  That happened this week with Microsoft putting a bunch of backwards compatible games on sale.  Already bought a few, and am waiting to buy more. Some I've played a bit of, some I haven't played at all.  A lot of these are games that I'll probably only ever play for a bit.  But I have a reasons to going and playing these games now.  Streaming. I don't stream to make money like a lot of people that try to stream on the internet.  I just do it to try and play games that I would probably never e...

One of the things that I always dread when going to a movie is how into it I will get.  Something like Fate of the Furious got me really back into the series so I ended up buying two diecast cars from the movie. Why?  I'm not quite sure.  I think a lot of it has to do with just trying to remind myself of the things I like.  Sure I can't watch the movie again, but I can't always just watch the movie, so it's probably nice to have an easier reminder. The most recent thing is after watching Guardians Vol 2.  Awesome movie.  Reminds me how much I don't only love those movies, but I do like the entire Marvel comics.  It caused me to buy the Disney Infinity 2.0 set from the first movie so I can play it.  It will probably also cause me to play the Telltale series. It always tends to happen for big things like this.  Reminders of things I like.  Reminders of things that make me happy.  Sometimes I tend to just get in the routine of just ...

I saw an article today talking about how it's been 20 years since the Fifth Element came out.  When it came out, apparently, the reviews were not so great.  I remember seeing it when my parents bought it on VHS.  I loved it. To this day I still love it.  It's easily one of my favorite movies.  But some people just don't get it and that's they're own opinion.  There are plenty of movies that I don't like or don't get.  Pretty much any movie that is up for the best movie awards at the Oscars are movies I won't watch cause I have zero interest in them. But I started listening to the How Did This Get Made podcast where they talk about a different movie each week that they may like or may not like and make fun of it as they go.  It's a fun podcast to listen to even if it isn't a movie that you've seen before. One of their early podcasts (I just started listening to it and started from the beginning) was for Sucker Punch.  They didn't really...

So i won't be writing something new everyday, but will be making "content".  Sorry to disappoint my thrall of readers!  I've been streaming more and there are different places that I will be streaming. On Wednesdays I will tend to be streaming on YouTube and playing story based games.  I'm currently playing through one of my favorite games, Life is Strange.  The nice thing about streaming to YouTube is that it archives it right to my channel.  You can catch the streams at gaming.youtube.com/user/myniceicelife/live or catch the archives at www.youtube.com/user/myniceicelife . I also will stream some time to Twitch when I'm on the Xbox One.  Those are random so if you really want to watch me play games poorly then you can follow me at twitch.tv/ myniceicelife . Don't fret though as I will still be writing stuff, just won't be everyday.  Stay tuned!

I'm not used to being "happy".  And I don't mean that happy feeling when you eat something you like or talk to someone you're friends with.  Ok those are probably bad examples of normal happy, but you know what I mean. I'm talking about just the happy feeling that makes your entire day go by like it was nothing.  Where you're not worried about anything.  Where you are just happy about everything. Now this is a fleeting feeling.  Something that even to have for a few days or two is an accomplishment.  Or at least to me it always has been.  If it's a normal thing for most people then there is probably something wrong with me.  But that's already well known. But after this weekend I had a moment where it showed up.  Caused by a simple camping trip with friends.  Something so simple, yet so powerful.  It will fade.  That I am sure.  But I'm ok with that. I now know it's possible and isn't that hard to find.  Something...

Ok, the title makes it sound like it was horrible.  It was not.  Actually it was one of the funnest things I've done in a long time.  But there were some things that I learned. The first thing is to pack some food.  My friends had plenty, but me being stubborn and realizing I screwed up by not bringing anything beyond some Jiffy Pop did not want to take what wasn't mind.  I will remember stuff next time, and also get a stick to cook over the fire. The second thing is that sleepy in a car is not that bad.  It was a little odd being at an angle, but that wasn't too bad.  Having the padding helped a lot and getting in and out worked pretty well.  Wish I was a little shorter so my legs wouldn't have been as bent, but it wasn't too bad. The bad part was that it got rather cold both nights.  The first night wasn't horrible.  In fact I stayed rather warm in the car and the sleeping bag.  Night two I wasn't so lucky.  It got colder ...

Nothing like a campfire when it's cold.

The easy "favorite" post train continues today with talk about movies.  Now I've talked about movies in the past, well at least one series, but I'm here to say that none of them are actually my favorite movie. Now don't get me wrong, if you want to talk about favorite movie franchises then the Fast and Furious franchise would actually rank number 1.  I put it over Star Wars and Rush Hour franchises.  How about that for two wildly different comparisons.  But while some of the movies in the franchise may make my top 10, those being The Fast and The Furious and Fast Five, they don't make number 1. That "honor" goes to Lost and Translation.  First off, I'm a huge Bill Murray fan.  Might be my favorite actor?  Probably.  And Scarlett Johansson is one of my favorite actresses; although this was the first movie I remember seeing her in.  So having these two actors in the movie make it an easy like, it's not really a movie most would expect to be a...

I could make a list or something like this, but there are a billion of those out there.  So instead I'm just going to ramble on and on about my favorite TV show.  I'll start by getting a few others out of the way real quickly. Parks & Rec, Breaking Bad and Castle are probably the most recent shows that rank high on my list.  I'm currently going through Castle at this time so that may change depending on later seasons.  I would also probably include Westworld in that list, but until HBO actually shows that there will be another season I'm hesitant to put it on here.  I'm counting only shows with more than one season, by the way. With those out of the way, on to my favorite show of all time: Futurama.  Futurama was a show that was always fantastic, but never had enough support from FOX.  It was the best thing on TV, even better than it's bigger brother The Simpsons.  It had the same fate as Family Guy, but unlike Family Guys long run after com...

Everyone has that thing that sets them off.  Maybe not exploding out at people, but something that just annoys them so much that they try to avoid it at all costs.  I knew what one of mine was, but have found another one. My triggers tend to deal with eating.  I do not like being around loud eaters.  I try not to be self conscious when I eat, because I don't want to be one of those loud eaters.  It's one of the reasons why I try to eat as fast as possible.  I want to get done so I can talk or get away from everyone that is a loud eater. When I was growing up and my grandma was home for the summer, she liked us to eat together.  I was always the first done because they are all lout eaters, except for my mom, but she was across the table from me.  It's nothing I hold against my family, it's just something that really annoys me. The other thing that has really started to annoy the hell out of me is listening to podcasts where the people are pourin...

I'm horrible at keeping things cleaned.  A lot of this isn't necessarily about laziness, more about forgetfullness and sometimes just not having any place to put something.  Recently I've been trying to at least improve on this. It started with some help from my parents getting the box warzone cleaned up and then moved on to the spare bedroom.  Now that the spare bedroom is cleaned up, I was able to move the movies/games/TV shows DVD/Blu-rays onto the additional media tower that I bought to get them off the floor.  It worked out perfectly that it had just enough space to take up everything that I had that wasn't on a shelf already. I think one of the biggest issues that causes me not to clean that much is that no one ever really comes over to where I live.  There has only been 3 people to ever come to my apartment, and those are my parents and grandma.  It's not that I don't care what they think of the state of my place, it's just that I know they already...

One of the funnest things to look back on is the changes in the music that you've listened to as you've grown up.  There are some people that listen to the same type of music throughout their lives, but I don't know how they do that.  My music preferences have changed a lot over time. When I was younger I tended to listen to the top 40 music.  It was the stations that my parents mostly listened to until I got a little older (10 or so) and they started listening to oldies.  And by oldies I mean the music they grew up listening to.  I stayed with the top 40 music and also listened to oldies because when you're a kid you don't have much say in what radio station is on in the car. This was a little more painful when I was with my grandparents as they listened to country.  Now I don't have anything really against country.  Nowadays there is some country that I appreciate, but most of it I still am not a fan of.  It doesn't help that most of it is rat...

One of the things I've been trying to deal with in over the past few months has been anger.  This isn't the "I'm mad at everything, I'm going to be a jerk" anger, but more of just more being mad at myself and my mind trying to blame others when I know it's my own fault. Some of the anger may be because part of my me doesn't think that I should just keep blaming myself for everything.  There is only so much I can control.  I have no control over how others react after I tell them something.  It's their decision and if I don't like it then that's not really my fault. One of the things though is that it has helped me in a way.  Part of it was the weight loss that I've talked about.  I've kind of settled in around the 150 mark, sometimes going lower and other times slightly past that.  It's stayed around there though. The other part is that I've used it to continue lifting weights.  I've talked about that to, but it's...

Most of our lives these days are impacted in some way by the internet.  Whether it's blogs like this, or people posting pictures on Instagram, or sharing what they did today on Facebook.  Our lives are constantly being shared with lots of people every day. Thinking of that is both terrifying and amazing.  We can instantly share something that is 100 miles away, 1000 miles away, or halfway around the world.  Me being down here by myself with no friends around makes stuff like this key.  Without it, I would have already gone more insane than I already am. One of the things that I'm starting to do is streaming when i'm playing games.  Now, I'm not trying to be one of those Twitch people with thousands of followers that is making their living off of that stuff.  That's not me.  Heck I don't even have a functioning computer any more, so I could edit a video to save my life. I just want to share my experience with some friends that want to watch a ga...

The mind is powerful thing.  It can also be a huge cunt.  I was sleeping last night and was having a dream.  The dream was something that I've done my best over the past few months to not to think about.  It was getting to the point that I was getting upset and managed to force myself to wake up. The last thing I remember before waking up was just me yelling "No".  There was part of my mind that knew what it was trying to avoid.  It was a fake thing.  Part of whatever consciousness that dreams are a part of was just trying to be a pain. But the effort I've been putting into trying to forget was able to force its way in and stop it.  Now this had the downside that it was hard to get back to sleep.  Thankfully I came up with an idea for something at work, which is kind of ironic that I was able to turn the dream and what it kind of relates to into something that was actually useful (worked to as I tried it today). The bigger problem is that ...

One of the things that I haven't done a lot in my life is read.  It's not that I don't like reading.  I used to.  It's just a lot harder to find something that I like that I tend to not waste my time with it. When I was a young kid, I read a little bit.  I think that Pizza Hut book club thing was one of the few things that got me reading.  Give a kid a pizza, he'll ready for a few weeks.  Then they started doing book reports, which killed all interest I had in reading.  Hey, you should read, so we're going to make you do a report on what you read so we know you did it.  Sounds fun, right?  Nope! Book reports killed reading for me for the most part.  I had a book in sixth grade that was on Earnest Hemingway that even after three quarters I hadn't finished.  I don't even think I got through the first few chapters.  I never did a book report on it.  I took the F.  I hated it. Now, there was a series of books that I f...

I spend way too much time watching TV.  I don't deny that.  It's probably both the caused by and the reason for why I don't have a lot of friends to do stuff with.  However, it's not like I watch TV for the sake of having nothing to do. I watch because I enjoy the shows that I watch.  Now, a lot of them I tend to see episodes over and over again mainly because I tend to just keep my TV on TBS and watch something else on my monitor from my phone, but they are still shows I enjoy. I also watch a lot of sports and wrestling, so that's on there too.  I've noticed thought that I actually don't pick up shows to watch until after they are done or almost done.  I didn't start watching The Office, Parks & Rec, or Breaking Bad until they were done with. The few shows that I have watched from the start tend to be shows that rank up in my favorites of all time.  Futurama, Simpsons, and Boy Meets World are all in my top 5. But now with things like Netflix o...

I love naps.  If I could, I would take a nap every day.  I do my best not to take a nap during the week though.  That is mainly because my naps aren't really naps. Years ago I saw that an actual nap is only about 20 minute long.  It's long enough so you don't actually go into REM sleep.  My naps tend to be at least 2 to 3 hours long. I tend to wake up feeling like I can stay awake for a good amount of time after taking the nap.  The problem with that is sometimes these naps take place at about 7pm at night.  At that point, I might as well just go to bed, but the body is not quite ready for that much sleep. So I end up waking up at 10pm and staying awake a lot later than I should.  Now, thankfully this usually only happens during the weekends.  This allows for resetting the sleep schedule on Sunday night so I can get back to a normal schedule for work. I didn't always like taking naps.  When I was younger I had more energy and could s...

Most of the time I will wait to see a movie when it comes out on blu-ray.  This is mainly because I enjoy being where I'm most comfortable.  The thought of going to a theater where it's always a roll of the dice on whether you're going to have a nice experience or are going to be annoyed by the people around you. The nice thing about most theaters these days is that they have assigned seating.  This is a god send and the fact that it took so long to get there is sad.  It's also nice that the theater that I mainly go to has recliner seats so it's mostly a relaxing experience, unless the idiot in front of you doesn't recline back.  Yes, that has happened on multiple times. The thing about assigned seating though is it makes it really easy to know when there is someone that will be sitting next to you.  You can see the seats that are available and those that aren't.  So it boggles my mind when people pick a seat next to me when there were plenty of seat...

Who wouldn't?  You would know all the outcomes of what you were going to do.  Personally, anxiety wouldn't be much of an issue anymore.  I would already know what was going to happen.  No need to worry about what was going to happen. But I understand the downsides of knowing the future.  Life would be predictable.  You would just be going through the motions.  It's like going to a movie or watching a sports event when you already know everything that happens because someone spoiled it for you. It's really a toss up.  If it was selective it would be much easier to make the decision.  I would like to know if I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.  Me worrying too much about what would happen if I told a girl I liked her or if I just wanted to ask her out would not be an issue if I knew what was going to happen.  It would take it out of my head just thinking it knows what will happen (99.9% negative results) and would actuall...

How can someone write about socks?  They have to be the most boring person in the world!  Well strap yourself in for one hell of a ride.  An adventure about SOCKS!!! Like most people I wear socks.  They're kind of a necessity unless you have perfect smelling feet and don't mind them touch your shoes.  Throughout the years I've gone from long socks, to no show, to quarter socks, and preferably ankle socks. You still with me? When I was a kid I never wanted to wear black socks.  They represented being old to me.  My dad wore black socks.  My grandpa wore black socks.  I'm not going to wear black socks!!!  They tried to give me black socks, but I refused.  I was young.  I wasn't boring.  I will not wear black socks!!!  This lasted for quite some time.  I actually made it all the way to the age of 26 having never worn black socks. But then there was the dark day.  I got a job that required business casual c...

So, this is a question that basically asks how you want people to see you.  There are people that worry about what people think of you and then there are those that just don't give a fuck.  Sadly, I'm in the first group, not the second one. Nice, kind, caring.  Those are words that I would probably use, but not necessarily be proud of.  Why you may ask?  Well, those don't get me anywhere.  I also tend to think I'm funny, but that's a matter of opinion. There is also the question that has been asked in surveys and such about what would you rather be, smart or beautiful.  Most people pick beautiful.  And that actually makes a lot of sense.  Beautiful people get things easier. That's not saying that I don't like being smart (well, I think I'm somewhat smart at least).  It has a lot of benefits.  But it's been said a lot that smart people tend to be more miserable and I can't argue with that. This question also comes up when you nee...

The one thing that most people will tell you that have gone to school or even have taken up a trade is that you are never done learning.  It's the one thing that keeps things interesting.  It can also be the one thing that is a drag. Now not all learning is in a classroom.  In fact, the classroom part is a very small part of any thing that you end up doing.  Experiences, good and bad, are what will truly teach you what you are doing. This is what I've enjoyed about my job and keeps me going with it.  In fact, just today I started a online course to learn Angular.  It's a framework for making websites.  Doesn't sound fun, but just the little that I got through today was exciting to see. Being able to make an input that as you type can place the text somewhere else on the page is so cool.  Now, does working on websites drive me every day and I'll be doing this till I retire.  Chances are no.  Technology will probably dictate that for me...

As we get closer to summer, I get sadder and sadder.  Now, yes, my birthday is in the summer and that has some effect, but that's not the reason.  I hate hot temperatures. I'm a winter person.  I like the snow on the ground.  I like not having to not use the wall air conditioner that is in my apartment.  I like being able to sleep in my own bed. Now people complain that it gets too cold in Wisconsin.  Then again there are people that complain when it's below 50 or 60.  Those are my thresholds of getting too hot. When it gets cold you can always put on more clothing.  When it gets too hot there is only so much clothing you can take off before the cops are called on you.  I also always tend to run hot anyways so any heat just destroys me. It doesn't help that it gets humid during the summers here.  I know people complain about humidity in Florida, but to me the humidity is worse up here.  I was down in Florida on the Fourth of Jul...

Went to a friends birthday celebration today and remembered how to talk to people.  This might sound silly, but when you haven't talked to some people in a long time it's something that doesn't come easy. For some reason though it was easy today.  Some of the people I was talking to were those that I've talked to a lot in the past.  Some I had never talked to before, but was still able to converse better than I normally do. The one thing that I finally got to do was flip the switch on all the filters that I normally put on.  I was able to not only keep up, but maybe push further than the person I was talking with.  It's something that I haven't done in awhile.  Living in a world where most of the people I interact with I have to be careful with what I say, this was actually a huge relief. When you have to watch what you say all the time, it gets hard to ever let it out when there is no one to let it out to.  Remembering that my mind can not only go ...

So I've seen the review percentages for Fate of the Furious and it's meh.  I've also seen the movie and it's fucking awesome.  I didn't even realize that it was almost two hours in when I finally looked at what time it was. Now at this point I will say that there will be spoilers from here on, so if you're sensitive to those then well stop reading. Part of me went into the movie thinking there was going to be more wrestling heel turns then actually happened.  I expected Hobbs and Mr. Nobody to turn, but they didn't.  I knew Dom would have had a reason for what he did and sure enough it was a good one. The one thing I didn't expect is that Charlize Theron's character wouldn't be such a hateable bad girl.  I hated her character, but in the good way.  Actually the bad guys in this movie were probably the best in the series. Now, there was a point (ok many points) in the movie where I was just like "well that's not how that would work...

One of the things that I haven't had to do a lot of in my life is tell other people what to do.  I tend to be trusting enough of people that I think that they would know what to do.  I also don't think that I have any right to tell anyone what to do unless it is my job specifically to do so. I had a few opportunities to do this when I worked in retail, and found it relatively easy.  It was my job to tell people where to go and what to do the times I was tasked to do so.  Didn't matter if I was a friend of the person, things needed to get done and that was my job to have people do what they needed to do. The next time I ever had to really do this was during one of my final (technical) college classes where we were split off into groups and the person in charge was to rotate around each week or so.  This worked for a time until I started noticing that things weren't going as well as they should.  I didn't tell anyone exactly what they were going to do, but ...

I've been playing video games for all of my life.  From arcade games when I was 4 to having all the consoles and handheld systems at the age of 30.  Playing games has been a big part of my life. Growing up there were areas that I missed some of the major consoles of the days.  I always had the current handheld systems, but the consoles of the time I missed out on.  I never did have a Game Gear though as I was given the option of either getting the GameBoy or the Game Gear.  I chose the GameBoy, which paid off when Pokemon came out. Now the consoles that I'm referring to are the SNES, Saturn and Dreamcast.  Of those I have bought a Dreamcast within in the past year or so to play some of the games I missed.  I had to buy a new controller and memory card for it, but I've enjoyed the time I've played it. My memories of the Dreamcast mainly focus around the time we went to Disney World when I was 14.  I can't remember which park it was that had it, ...

When I was younger and getting bullied, one of the things I was encouraged to do was talk to the guidance counselor.  Normally this is a good thing to do.  If you're in trouble you should talk to someone that can help. Now, I won't say it's the counselor's fault, but talking to her did not help at all.  In fact all it really did was cause everything to get worse.  At some point I just stopped talking.  I made some changes, got some payback, and the one time it started happening during my Freshman year, I didn't last too long before taking matters into my own hands (well fist). The one thing that I (unfortunately) learned from that was that saying how I feel is a bad thing.  I know I've most likely talked about this before, but it is really important.  It's something that has never really disproven itself over my life. I take the 2 instances I've told someone that I like them.  Yes, there are only two instances that this has happened.  Both...

I believe this is the 30 post in the last 30 days.  I didn't count, so if someone wants to count go for it.  I'm going to continue with this so at some point I'll reach it if I haven't already. On to the topic at hand.  One of the places I've never been that I've always wanted to go to is Japan.  I've had times where I've said that I was going to, but things have come up that have side tracked that. I first was going to buy a house, but that proved more difficult than I planned on.  That was my fault though.  I'm picky and when I'm the only one looking then that doesn't help.  Then I got in an accident and had to get a new car so that took the money I could have used for the trip and was placed somewhere else. Once I get my spending under control I will start saving some money for a trip at some point either late this year or next year.  Next year will be 5 years at where I'm working (hoping so at least) and that means I'll gain an...

As of last week I have lived down here for 3.5 years.  I have a two bedroom apartment in which 1 of the rooms has never been used for anything as storage.  This is fine, although it has been rather unorganized. I started reclaiming my kitchen last month after my dad helped me get things a little cleaned up as Amazon boxes had taken over.  I know have space to move around where the table is and can actual get to the cabinet where I still have to remember that I put food in there. One of the things that was added to the kitchen was the rolling cabinet that had been in the spare bedroom since I moved down here.  It was no easy task getting it out as it was behind a wall of boxes.  I had to actually make a U around the room to get to it and then get it out.  Couldn't roll it out though because there was no space to do that.  Had to carry it out and sadly it wasn't very light. Had a done just the little bit that I did today it would have been easier, alt...

I've never been the one to exercise a lot.  When I was younger, like most younger people, I didn't have to do it so much because the good ole metabolism was still working at full speed. The job I had before leaving and finishing up school kept me active, or at least on most days standing.  Once I didn't have that and was just working at a desk all day along with getting older the weight started to go up. I never got "fat", but got sluggish.  I was not a fan of this, but when I tried exercising late last year, I didn't really lose any weight.  This could have been because I was regaining the muscle that I had let go, but that's just an excuse.  When I broke almost two months ago, it helped me start losing weight.  Eating less has a tendency of doing that.  But I also started exercising at this time too, mostly out of anger.  I've always tried to walk and use the standing desk twice a day at work to keep for just sitting all day.  But I sta...

Shucks, missed it by less than an hour.  Oh well, I'll just write two things today.  That should make up for it. A name is a way we identify someone.  Everyone has one.  Most have a first and a last.  Some just have one if you're famous enough, or egotistical enough.  There is one name that has come to haunt me though. Everywhere I go I seem to find the name.  It has different forms, but it is still the same name.  And it's kind of funny how often I see it now.  It's a lot like it was after I got my new car.  Before I had seen it everywhere, and then when I was actually looking for a new car I didn't see it at all.  Once I bought it, there it was again all over the place. Kind of the way this name has been.  Didn't see it all that often, but now that it actually has an affect on me I see it and hear it more than I had before.  Not the same person, but different people or characters in TV shows or movies.  No escapi...

Glamping, as it was explained to me, is when you go camping in anything that is more luxurious than a tent.  This is the type of camping of done all my life.  I know nothing different. But this May I will be going camping in something that doesn't have 4 solid walls and a roof over my head (well technically a pop-up doesn't have completely solid walls, but it's not a tent!).  And in reality I'm still avoiding the tent aspect and will be sleeping in my car.  Thankfully my car is an Outback, so I will have the room and storage all in one spot so it won't be that bad. Now, I've always loved camping.  I used to go a lot when I was a kid with my parents and grandparents.  My grandparents even had a camper that they owned on a river.  I would go there multiple times during the summer and we'd go fishing out on the boat or go for bike rides.  I have a lot of fun memories of doing that.  Still don't want to put a worm on a hook or kill a fish (I do...

So there is no one answer to that question.  There are probably dozens or hundreds of things that I need to stop doing.  However, one of the major things that I need to stop doing is stop doubting myself. I, like many people, am a huge self doubter.  Not about everything, mind you, but about a lot of things.  One of the main things that has always been said about me is that I need to have more confidence.  That's a tough thing to do. You may ask why is that so hard?  It's simple.  You can't build something up when you have nothing to build with.  If I asked you to build a house with nothing, how far would you get?  Not really far.  When I don't have a lot to help build my confidence up, it's rather hard to do so. Now, I do have confidence in some things that I do.  I wouldn't be able to do my job or even talk about what I do without having some confidence in my job.  I'm not the greatest/best at what I do, but I'm competent ...

"The aspect of someone's character that is presented to or perceived by others." That is the common theme in what is my favorite video game of all time, Persona 4/Persona 4 Golden.  Today was the release date of the fifth game in the series in the US, and having just played for 2 hours that theme is already strong. I could go on about the whole story and why I absolutely love P4, but that would take forever.  The main summarization is that the characters of the game make it so great.  But they are great because they are flawed.  Flawed like people really are. Everyone is hiding something on the inside.  Something may be an understatement for some.  It could just be putting on a smile when you're hurting on the inside.  It could be acting like someone you're not.  It could be being nice to someone that you don't like or a jealous of.  There are so many things that people hide because they don't know what others would think of them if they ...