Forgot password?  |  Register  |    
User Name:     Password:    
Blog - General Entry   

Random Update 3-18-14


On 03/18/2014 at 01:05 PM by Ranger1

See More From This User »

I hope most of my friends have recovered from St. PaDDy's Day. I myself stay in, I don't have a lot of desire to carouse with the plastic Paddy set. Anyway, here's what 'e been up to in the last week:

Playing: I soldiered through Afrika, mostly because I really wanted to like it despite its flaws. And about a third of the way through, it got a lot better. It took getting decent telephoto lenses and a better camera to make it more fun. Also, once you open up all the areas for exploration, you get more animals and better missions when you send pics back to HQ. The Big Game segments were actually pretty fun. Your companion remains a useless pain in the ass except for during those segments when he or she is driving the jeep while you're taking pictures. I'm thinking about playing it through a second time and taking notes and writing it up as my character's journal and posting it here. It should be amusing, my character's partner will be getting a lot of abuse. The trophies in the game were amazingly easy, leading to my first ever platinum trophy. Sorry KnightDriver, I think maybe I actually do want to keep this game after all.

I also bought Treasures of Montezuma off PSN for $1.50, it was one of the minis. It's a pretty fun match three game and the price was right.

I'll go back to Tales of Symphonia and finish that and the sequel next.

Reading: Still not, and I should. I really need to finish the stack of books I bought last fall. The lighting in the cottage leaves a lot to be desired for reading, and I just haven't gotten around to buying a decent reading lamp. At least that's the excuse I'm going with.

Watching: Finished Kyle XY this AM. They cancelled it after a very short third season that ended in a cliffhanger. I hate when that happens. I'm partway into the fourth season of Supernatural, a show that I like, but it is seriously formulaic. Also, they do a shitty job in the research end of things. The last episode I watched (It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester) had Sam and Dean trying to stop a witch from releasing a demon called "Samhain". Samhain is an event, not a frigging demon. It's one of the Celtic cross-quarters and is the ending of the harvest and summer and the beginning of winter. It is when the veils between worlds are at their thinnest, they did get that part right. However, it's not pronounced "Sam Hain", it's pronounced like saween or soween". Takes about 30 seconds to google that. I know it's just a TV show, but it still bugs me.

Current TV shows being watched on a regular basis are The Amazing Race, The Blacklist, Cosmos, Agents of SHIELD, NCIS, Person of Interest, and Hell's Kitchen. I missed a couple of episodes of Revolution and Arrow and now they're not streaming on Hulu Plus, so I've lost the continuity of those two series. I'll just wait for them to come to Netflix and catch up there.

Iditarod: It's over for another year. The last musher crossed under the Burled Arch in Nome on Saturday at 7:42 in the evening, Alaska time. Jeff King, the leader, scratched before he checked into Safety, the last checkpoint before Nome. He and Aliy Zirkle ran into bad weather, winds so strong they were blowing the sleds, teams, people, and snowmobiles over. His dogs got blown off the trail into a pile of driftwood and tangled up. By the time Jeff King got them untangled, the dogs had had enough and quit, and Jeff did, too. Aliy got into Safety and crashed, only to wake up and discover Dallas Seavey had come into the checkpoint and checked right back out again. She left, and almost caught him, he beat her into Nome by two minutes. Aaron Burmeister of the dislocated knee was 10th. Newton Marshall, the Jamaican musher, was 43rd. The funniest thing? Dallas Seavey didn't realize he was first, at first. He thought he was racing for third place against his dad, when it was actually Aliy Zirkle behind him and not Mitch. And with the ending of the Iditarod for this year, so ends my interest in sports until football season starts.

Listening: The Saw Doctors and The Waterboys have seen some play this week, but I haven't been listening to much, too busy gaming.

Nature stuff: Saw what I think was a snowy owl last week flying low over the neighbor's field. About an hour or so ago, I watched a vole scuttle across my front yard and disappear in the remains of the flower bed. Now is the time when I start listening for the wood frogs, they'll be coming out of hibernation as soon as the pond ice has melted enough for there to be open water. They spend the winter burrowed under the duff on the forest floor frozen solid, their bodies producing an enzyme that acts like antifreeze and keeps the soft tissues from crystalizing and their cells from bursting. So many people use robins as a sign of spring (but they may over-winter sometimes), but my first signs of spring are the wood frogs and the woodchucks. Woodchucks are one of the few mammals around here that are true hibernators. The other two are a species of vole and little brown bats. When I see the woodchucks or hear the wood frogs, then I believe it's spring and not before.

Have a great week, people! I've got a birthday on Friday, so it's going to be a great week here!


 

Comments

SanAndreas

03/18/2014 at 01:46 PM

Gamingwise, I played Tales of Symphonia on PS3 and Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded on iPad. I bought the latter because it was 5 bucks on the App Store and I still had money left from a prepaid card, so impulse buy. Tales of Symphonia is as awesome as I remembered it to be, and LSL is funny.

Ranger1

03/18/2014 at 02:11 PM

Yeah, I noticed you've been playing ToS. How far are you?

SanAndreas

03/19/2014 at 11:32 PM

I'm in Heimdall, so if this were the Gamecube I'd be close to the end of disc 1.

Ranger1

03/20/2014 at 07:14 AM

You quite a lot further than I am. I just arrived in Flanoir.

V4Viewtiful

03/18/2014 at 03:30 PM

Oh you cheeky little -- I see what you did. Couldn't let the error slide could ya? I hope you got pinched!

Anyway, I still haven't finished the original Symphonia yet, I started I years ago but barely got through 2 hours, I had completely forgotten what it's about.

Oh here's something I took in Central London on Monday

Ranger1

03/18/2014 at 03:38 PM

Ashley, it wasn't just you that I corrected, lol.

I bought Symphonia way back when I bought my Game Cube, tried it, and hated it. Back on the shelf it went, to commune with the dust bunnies. A couple of years went by and I decided to give it a second chance. Glad I did, it's one of my favorite RPGs.

Like the piper. When I lived in Portlnd, we used to wander out and watch the Paddy's Day parade and poke fun at the plastic paddies. The best was when the pipe and drum corps went by and were playing "Scotland the Brave". Very few people got it when we started wishing everyone a happy St Andrew's Day.

KnightDriver

03/18/2014 at 04:13 PM

I should celebrate St. Andrew's Day since I have some attachment to Scotland. My Grandfather identified a manor house some distant part of the family lived in there once and I went on a bicycle trip across Scotland when I was 18. November 30th. I'll have to remember that this year.

KnightDriver

03/18/2014 at 04:10 PM

No worries. I want to see your pictures in Afrika.

Ranger1

03/18/2014 at 04:13 PM

I'll have to figure out how to do do that. And I started a new game and it wiped out my previous save file. That's stupid, why is there only one save file?

C.S.3590SquadLeader

03/18/2014 at 04:15 PM

I've had a lot of shows I liked get cancelled on a huge cliffhanger episode, it's really not fun. I've been getting into Agents of SHIELD lately, though the amount of breaks that the show's taken so far is a little disorienting.

Ranger1

03/18/2014 at 04:21 PM

Each episode costs a ton of money to make, and it's not getting the ratings that the execs were hoping for. The daughter of some good friends is First Unit Assistant Director, so I get the skinny from her parents. I wish the networks would realize that doing that actually drops rating even more, because no one can ever figure out if the show is on or not. They've been doing that with The Blacklist, too

Cary Woodham

03/18/2014 at 07:35 PM

I just finished reviewing Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and it'll post by the end of the week.  In my next blog, I'll have a few things to say about it, too.

Happy birthday!  Have a SUPER Power Pellet!

Ranger1

03/18/2014 at 07:53 PM

I'm looking forward to your review, Cary, and thanks for the Power Pellet.

Super Step Contributing Writer

03/18/2014 at 07:42 PM

I need to read too, but it seems my interest in sports begins where yours ends. SFA is in the NCAA again, and I have them as winning in my Billion Dollar Bracket.

I'm glad Afrika got better.

I still need to start Arrow on Netflix. I've been watching the first eps of lots of Netflix shows to see whether or not I want to watch them.

Oddle enough, I saw an owl fly out of my car's way a couple weeks back.

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 07:27 AM

Yeah, baseball and basketball do nothing for me, unless I'm watching our local AAA baseball team play live, and even then, it's less about the game and more about the people watching.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

03/18/2014 at 10:01 PM

so you're starting your job again soon?  that's exciting!

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 07:27 AM

yes, very! Eleven days now.

Chunopo

03/19/2014 at 04:15 AM

Wow been quite a while since I caught up with you Tami! it's no surprise that your love of all things nature would bleed into your gaming but from what I ve sen Afrika looks like quite an impressive idea and makes a change from the usual open world carnage thats mainly on offer in gaming today.... tough I'm sure Lions would prove to be a handful if you get too close!

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 07:31 AM

Hey Adam! Good to hear from you! Believe it or not, the zebras were what did me in the most - five stompings by zebra, three by elephant, one mauling by lion, one stomping by buffalo, and one baboon attack.

Chunopo

03/19/2014 at 11:16 AM

Ha ha, sounds almost as much activity as your Job!

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 11:27 AM

You'll have to read the blog series I'm planning. I'm going to call it Anna's Diary and it will be an amusing take on my new play-through of Afrika. A lot of it will be abuse heaped on my annoying colleague. Bastard wouldn't let me back in the jeep when I was being chased by an elephant, for crying out loud! "Anna, you haven't gotten the recording of the elephant yet."

Nicoleb1989

03/19/2014 at 01:54 PM

I really need to get back into reading myself, its something I love doing I just dont give it the time it deserves and I really need to. I was reading Sojourn By R.A. Salvatore before I stopped. Its the third novel in the origin story for his character Drizzt Do' Urden. I love the chracter so I wanted to begin the books with his origin story. After I plan to read the Icewind Dale Trilogy set.

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 02:16 PM

Now that the days are longer, the natural light will make it easier to read in my cottage. I haven't read that particular series yet. I was in the middle of the Divergent trilogy before I got distracted and lazy.

BrokenH

03/19/2014 at 02:47 PM

Glad Afrika got better after you passed that bump of frustration,Tam! Happy St. PaDDy's day to you too! 

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 04:33 PM

The one thing that kept me going was looking up the trophies and realizing that it would be an easy platinum, lol.

TheMart22

03/19/2014 at 04:09 PM

I appreciate the double D's Tami Laughing. For some reason the T's annoy me more than most.

Oh, and yay for the Saw Doctors! Fair play!

Ranger1

03/19/2014 at 04:31 PM

I come from a long, long line of Patricks, so I take it personally. We've got them traced back as far as 1805 when the Patrick that emigrated to New Brunswick was born. He was from Co. Derry, his wife from Co. Tyrone. And there was an unbroken line of Patricks up until my generation.

Love the Saw Doctors! I think I've seen them five times in concert now.

goaztecs

03/23/2014 at 09:05 PM

Ooh I see Montezuma Blitz! I haven't tried the mini, is it fun? I do like the Blitz game on Vita, and the tablet game, but it's getting a little tough now.

It looks like you have a solid TV Lineup there. I'm going to check out another episode of Cosmos, and hopefully this one gets me into the series. The subject matter is interesting but the show isn't clicking with me.

Ranger1

03/24/2014 at 08:32 AM

The mini is lots of fun. I lied, though, it's $2.50, not $1.50.

I like the original Cosmos better, it was less flash and glitz, but they're both good.

NSonic79

05/08/2014 at 01:26 PM

I had to give up on revolution too when I got behind in my basic hulu watching. i'll have to wait till it's on neflix. Plus I'm still steamed that Aaron lives.

No! I'm never getting over that!

Log in to your PixlBit account in the bar above or join the site to leave a comment.