PixlBit

Happy Friday good people of Pixlbit! As our week is coming to a close, let us enjoy the absolute freezing weather we’ve been having. Yes East Coast I too have been going through cold weather…and by cold I mean Southern California cold. I’ve seen some pics of people’s home surrounded by mountains of snow, frozen water in their toilets, and the crazy folks who throw boiling water outside (I would so do this). Stay warm people!

Since it’s Friday, it is time for another edition of Quick Hits with Chris. In today’s episode we’ll talk about my first finished book of the new year, what I did when I couldn’t sleep, and other mildly interesting topics that pop in my head while I type this. So sit back, stay warm, and let’s get this party started!

 

Chris Finishes 1^st Book Of 2014

One of my goals for 2014 is to read more. On Goodreads I decided to set my goal at 12 books (one per month), and after a couple of days in, I finished my first book. I listened to the audiobooks version of Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid.

 

I started reading this a couple of years ago but stopped and never got back to it. Well when I started walking, I decided to put this on the iPod and listen to it while I walked around the neighborhood. After a couple of days I decided to finish the book while playing some NCAA Football because I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended.

I really enjoyed the storyline about the strange events that happen in a small island in Maine, and focuses on the body found on the beach. It deals with two other men who run the local newspaper telling a young intern about this even that happened in the 1980s. It’s a good read, and it was the book the television show Haven is based on (I watched the first two seasons, but lost interest after that).

I need to start ripping the audiobooks I found at a dollar store during the summer, so I can listen to those next. In the meantime I’m 50% finished with A Game Of Thrones.

 

Chris Can’t Sleep

A couple of nights ago I woke up thinking it was too dark to be 7am, looked at the clock and it was 1:30am. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and instead of watching TV*

*Anyone else remember when TV Stations ended broadcast at 1am with the national anthem and video of the American Flag?

I decided to give some Big Gameboy some play

 

I played an hour of Dream Land, leveled up both characters, and I decided to give Hulu+ a try

 

I jumped through a couple of hoops to set up a while back, but never tried it. Well I watched the first 10 minutes of Community, and well I wasn’t too big on the quality of the video (I wish the Vita had a Hulu+ app. That screen is made for video). I think I might remove the app from the Big Gameboy.

 

Chris’ Album Of The Week

Instead of having one album to review, I thought I’d cover two; one album I’ve never listened to and the other, is one I wanted to listen to after hearing that the voice of the Padres, Jerry Coleman passed.

 

When I bought this album I thought it was going to be recordings of the Pep Band, but instead it’s 9 songs sung by Jim Hurley about the Arkansas Razorbacks. A couple of the songs were parody songs with Arkansas themes. The album isn’t bad, there are some funny lines in some of the songs, poking fun of the teams that made up the old Southwestern Conference. This is one of the first albums I ripped to iTunes in 2014, and if you’re an Arkansas fan, this is worth checking out.

 

The second album is one I bought back in ’96 when the Padres won the NL West.

 

Much like the The Mighty Razorbacks album, this album had a bunch of Parody/Novelty songs. A couple of the songs were about the various members of the team, but what I really enjoyed about this album is the first track that included all the memorable calls from the ’96 season narrated by Ted Leitner.

The reason why I listened to it because there were a bunch of calls Jerry Coleman made, and had his trademark “You Can Hang A Star” call. Before going to college in San Diego I never cared about the Padres, but listening to his calls made me a fan. I didn’t know much about his history until he passed, and it’s interesting to hear all the things he did. He fought in two wars, was the World Series MVP for the Yankees, and won Four World Series Titles, but to me, he was the voice of the Padres. It was sad to hear he passed but the outpouring of love by different people and in San Diego is awesome. On Wednesday Night SDSU had a ceremony for Jerry, and the student section brought gold stars

 

 I borrowed Ernie Anderson's awesome photo

SDSU Honor's Jerry Coleman before the SDSU vs Boise State basketball game

Keith Olbermann remembers Jerry Coleman

Thank you Mr. Coleman for introducing me to the San Diego Padres.

 

 

The Return Of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Shield returned from it’s cliffhanger (I refuse to call it “Mid Season Finale”) and the episode wasn’t bad. I’m not going to into details about the episode in case you haven’t seen it…but you need to go watch!

 

Earlier in the day my friend sent me a Youtube video of Chloe Bennet’s music video when she was Chloe Wang

For you How I Met Your Mother Fans, it reminded me of this

 

And then I found all three of Chloe Wang’s singles, technically two on iTunes. Uh Oh has a Chinese and English versions, I bought the singles and now they call my iPod home

 

 

Knock Two Games Off Of Mount Backlog

 

Thursday Morning while eating breakfast, I took down the final three bosses to complete the game. This is the first Android game I played while using a stylus. I also found out that the game will shoot automatically which led me to use the stylus because I thought it was easier to control and see the entire screen.

I don’t know if I will go back and try to 4 star every level, and try to unlock every ship (I need two ships to complete the set), but for now, I’m happy I got to check “Beaten” in my Backloggery Page

 

I also took this game down the night before

 

Holy cow is the final boss insanely difficult? I think I spent an hour with a couple of breaks in between because of the crazy fighting. I found that once I got into a groove and noticed a pattern, it became manageable. This is an awesome game and an early favorite for my Game of the Year. Am I the only one who caught the faint hints of the underground music from Super Mario Bros. in the in-game music?

 

On Cheap Ass Gamer there is a thread where users can update their posts on what games they’ve beaten in 2014. I usually get up to March or April and forget about this thread but 2014, I’m keeping up with it

 

Pickups!

This is what happens when you let me go Grocery Shopping, I stop by the Toys R Us next door to look at the various Lego sets and I end up leaving with a game.

 

I like looking through there used games display and they had a couple of new games, and decided on Centipede. I like trying the new takes on old games, to see if they created something worth playing. The code in the box for an extra skin still works but after looking the game up on GameFAQs, I realized that there are no unique codes and quickly added the other skins, and guns to my game.

The game itself is ok, it adds a storyline and new style of gameplay to the game but the idea is still the same, shoot the bugs, and the little nods to the original are apparent. Not a bad game for $8.

So it turns out the Crackdown 2 game I bought last week, I already owned (I thought I owned the original Crackdown) so I went to exchange my game at the local GameStop. Again awesome people at this store, and I made sure my survey knew this. I traded that copy of Crackdown 2 for these DS games that were found at the front counter with all the other DS games in CD envelopes, with many games under $8

 

I mentioned Brain Age in last blog, and I really do like these games. I think each game came out to $2 each. Awesome stuff, and again you DS/3DS owners out there, check out your local GameStop, a ton of good stuff can be bought for under $10! 

While I was browsing the 360 section looking for a complete copy of the original Crackdown, I spotted these two games

 

I was going to break down and buy one of the Raiden games on PSN, but then I found these games in awesome condition (cases were clean, no sign of wear and tear, had the manuals, and one of the games came with the GameStop Exclusive soundtrack)

I’ve only played Raiden Fighters Aces so far but I’ll get to Raiden IV this weekend. I’m not very good at the Raiden games but they’re fun.

Since I added new DS games, my 3DS/DS game case was now full so on the way home I stopped at the local Target and picked up another game case so now I can have a case for my DS games and my 3DS games. While in the DS section, I saw that the used game section has been refilled, and the only game that interested me is Jewel Master

 

Jewel Master has filled my quest for destroying 3 or more of the same colored jewels in a row itch. This has quickly become the big casual game on the Big Gameboy when not wanting to play a Mario game or a quiz game.

In music pickups I didn’t go out to the Thrifts (but I might after this blog) but in the 12 Days app on my phone I got a couple of tracks from The Rolling Stones, which is cool. I have been listening to bunch of my own music which is good.

 

Well Pixlbit we have come to the end of another Quick Hits With Chris blog. Everyone stay warm, and before I go, I’ve been having a good conversation with Joe Step in one of my earlier blogs and the subject of No Doubt came up, and I remember how much I loved the Tragic Kingdom album and my time as a happy Cast Member.

 

Here is one of the songs that I liked because the beginning is from the Matterhorn announcements and the long running joke for Disney People for the Spanish Part of “Remain Seated Please, Permanecer sentados por favor” is “Remain Seated Please, Cinnamon Toast & Tacos on the floor”

 

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris