Thursday, May 1, 2014

April 2014 Entry



April has come and gone. I know I said that March was a long month, but April really felt long. Long days and sometimes long nights.

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- I don't like acknowledging this, but work sucks. I've slowly realized that I now feel the same way I used to when I last worked at this company and that's a bad thing. I've already spoken to a couple of key people at work to let them know and basically have given them a 3-month notice. I did assure them that my work won't suffer because I've never been that way. If things get better within the next 3 months or some changes happen, I'll stick around. But for now, it's getting harder going into work. My eye had been twitching a lot this month (hasn't twitched in a while) and I have been losing a lot of sleep.

- I have been trying to exercise a bit more. I started lifting these dumbbells I have again. My back was killing me after the first day. A back belt is needed now when I do these. That at least keeps the back pain low, but my heart issues factor in some time. Basically I don't do these exercises for long, only a few minutes before I feel I have to stop before my heart explodes. But things are progressing fairly well. Some progress is better than no progress.

- Wrestlemania XXX happened on the 6th of April and it was amazing. The Hall of Fame the night before was great (especially Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Razor Ramon's speeches). The beginning to Wrestlemania XXX with Hogan, Austin, and The Rock set the tone and I was freaking out like a teenager again, ha. The majority of the matches were great. Capping the night off with Daniel Bryan hoisting the titles in the air with 80000+ people chanting "Yes" was a fantastic sight. He deserved it. I jumped out of my chair when it happened.

The Undertaker's Streak ending...wow. That was the biggest and most unexpected moment of the night. My breath was taken away and I felt like a part of my soul left as well. The reaction from the live audience in attendance was the most real and guttural thing I have ever seen. That moment will live on in infamy as one of the definitive Wrestlemania Moments ever. I watched that scene 4 times and it still shocks me that Paul Heyman's client, Brock Lesnar, conquered The Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania.

I made a prediction for the following night on RAW regarding a possible Undertaker/Sting interaction. It didn't happen, but it became one of my most retweeted and favorited tweets I've ever made.


Keeping with the Twitter talk, a week later I made another popular tweet regarding the new Divas Champion, Paige. One of WWE's twitter accounts actually retweeted it and it helped get more retweets and favorites because of them. Thanks.


And sadly, 3 days after being inducted into the Hall of Fame, 2 days after appearing at Wrestlemania XXX, and 1 night after gracing the audience on RAW after so many years, The Ultimate Warrior (Jim Hellwig) passed away. It's was so odd reading the news. After coming back and doing all these things, he's gone. In a weird way, it's as if he knew. The Ultimate Warrior was one of my favorite wrestlers when I was a kid. He exuded this energy that you couldn't deny. That and just the kind of person he was is what will keep him in the minds of all his fellow Warriors. You will be missed.


 
- I went to the Japan Festival on the 13th. I think this is the fifth or sixth year in a row going. While it's usually the same thing, I just like going. I always run into people I haven't seen in a long time there.

This year, I ended up taking some of the young kids from the flash mobs with me. They asked to hang out again when we reunited at Anime Matsuri so this was a good time to do it. We went a little later than I had hoped, but the festival does have a different feeling with less people and vendors shutting down. I only took one photo there and it wasn't even Japan Festival related, ha. We went to eat ramen afterwards at Tiger Den. The ramen was pretty good. I wouldn't mind going there again.

 
- I did manage to have about a week where I caught up with friends. Saw 6 of them and it was good catching p with them. One of them and I had an adventure day for Easter where we watched a movie, had Italian, went to the Waterwall, went to the Buffalo Bayou, and ate sushi. Seems we have a new Easter tradition. Let's see if we can continue it.



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- I ordered these 2 figurines of CommanderVideo from the BIT.TRIP series. They're really cool. Unfortunately, the legs are small and the figures started to lean after a couple of weeks. I'm currently keeping them upright with some strategically utilized hair ties.

 
- Two Fit Meters are now in my possession. My first one wasn't calculating my altitude steps accurately. I noticed it after the Japan Festival. It shouldn't have just been 3 steps. I kept track for a week and yeah...I needed a new one. I dropped that one close to 10 times. At first I was impressed that it was still working, but al those drops eventually took its toll. But my new one came in recently and has been working properly.

 
- Game Boy Advance games started to be released on the Wii U's Virtual Console. The one I was looking forward to getting was Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. That was definitely a fun adventure. I never played it before on the GBA, but had played all the ones after it. I'm kind of thinking it's the best of the 4.

 
- NES REMIX 2 (Wii U eShop) - Review
NES REMIX 2 came out. I really enjoyed the first one. Unfortunately, I think the charm has worn off. It's not horrible by any means, but even with a better selection of games it just wasn't as exciting. Read my review. I did something interesting with this one.

 
- I finally beat Bravely Default (04.30.14). My goodness, I put 117 hours into that game. 134 hours if you count the time collected after the party wiped out many times. No review written yet so you'll have to wait for next month's entry to see it on this blog. I did max out all levels and jobs. Pretty close to 100%, but I had to skip some of the last sidequests because they were very difficult. I just wanted to finally beat the game since I was so close. I'm excited to play the sequel whenever it comes out.

My final team (I couldn't get a Miiverse photo of since they blocked the last battle and ending, which is smart) was: Tiz - Performer/White Mage, Agnes - White Mage/Time Mage, Ringabel - Dark Knight/Freelancer, and Edea - Templar/Performer.


 
- Now that Bravely Default has been conquered, the next game on the list is Child of Light. I downloaded it the day before I beat Bravely Default and considered it my prize once I beat it.


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- The Batman short videos for the 75th anniversary of Batman have been phenomenal.



- The Best of RAW: After The Show is a must have for any wrestling fans. There was so much unseen footage that happens after RAW and this collection shows off some of the best. While the majority is great, the best segment has to be the Takeroonie segment, ha.

 
- Anime April happened. I watched anime every day throughout the month of April (except the last day).

First up was Kill La Kill (2 episodes a day). I really enjoyed this one. I knew it was nuts, but I didn't realize how off the wall it really would be. It has to be one of the sillier and crazier animes I've seen in a long time. Definitely recommend it.

Then I rewatched The Vision of Escaflowne (2 episodes a day). I saw it when it originally was released back in 1996. I remembered very little going back into it. The pace was slower and there was more drama than I could recall. The best part of that anime has to be the soundtrack. Familiar tunes were definitely memorable.

Next was Pokemon The Origin (1 episode a day). I really liked this retelling of the Red/Blue/Green game. The crammed it all into 4 episodes and even tied it a little to the recently released X/Y games. I wouldn't have minded had this series been longer or if they did more in this style.

And Anime April ended with me rewatching My Neighbor Totoro. I think I chose this one because of my Fiend or Fauxx Totoro bag. I didn't remember much of this movie since I saw it back in high school. But it is still a wonderful movie. I also find it funny that Totoro and Kill La Kill both have main characters named Satsuki, ha.

For the month of May, I will be watching all of the Maken-Ki series (1, OVA, Special, and 2). I'm calling it Maken-Ki May.

- BoA's movie Make Your Move came out in theatres in the US. I went into it with low expectations and that helped me enjoy it more. Of course it was a dance movie so the plot wasn't the best. I will say though that the movie would have been the same with or without BoA. Her accent is very heavy (which I don't mind), but it was emphasized more because no one else in the movie had an accent. It made her lines sound forced. Her accent isn't even that heavy in her English album, but that's probably because she was singing. I love BoA and everything she does, but Make Your Move isn't a good highlight. I still enjoyed it, but it's hard for me to recommend to anyone that doesn't like BoA or dancing.

 
- As I had mentioned earlier, there were some low parts in April where things just sucked. So I found myself listening to a lot of the Genki Rockets. Listening to their songs always puts me in a good mood.


Thank you for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, and be loved.

 
Take care. DFTBA.

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