Tuesday, December 1, 2015

November 2015 Entry



November felt like a short month. Well, more like it felt it went by really fast. I remember a coworker and I saying how "it's already November" followed by "it's already mid-November," ha.

=========================

- I had a quick bit of sickness that hit me (11.03). Took the day off from work to recover as not only did I have a fever, my back was hurting so much. It felt as bad as it did when I injured my back after going to Sky High Sports years ago. It was that debilitating. Ended up icing my back and wearing my back brace for the next couple days.  

- Best Buy occasionally gives out mysterious award certificates. For the second year in a row, mine was only for $5. So I decided to buy something I had in my crosshairs for a while, the Married With Children Complete Series DVD set (11.06.15). It's crazy going back and watching this show. I do remember a good chunk of it, but a lot of the first and second season was almost new to me. As of typing this, I am on season 5 and just finished disc 8 of 22.


- 107 Facts About Cowboy Bebop (posting because it's so cool)


- Got some new WWE merchandise thanks to deals. The only thing pictured is my New Day unicorn shirt. Forgot to take a picture when I got it, but I plan to wear it on a certain day.



- My ex had her baby shower in town (11.21). Got a little lost finding the place. It was definitely interesting reuniting with a few familiar faces (last time I saw one of them was when they just had a baby and now the baby is 7). I also got to meet some of her high school friends and her step son and step daughter for the first time. The step daughter is cute. She was very invested in one of the baby shower games in which the guests were given a pink clothes pin to wear. If they spoke one of the two words (pink, girl) and someone caught them then they would have to give them their clothes pin. The person with the most at the end of the party wins. She asked if she could add a word and I said it would be okay. I don't remember if the word was "her" or "baby," but I also helped her get some clothes pins by telling her to ask guests to read the rules out loud so they would automatically lose, ha. I was only able to stay for an hour (even showed up to work half an hour late). I made sure before I left to give the step daughter my pin by saying "I'm leaving now so make sure to take care of her" while pointing to my ex, ha. Other than that, it was good to see my friend being in such a happy mood as she is close to 7 months pregnant. Very happy for her.

- Survivor Series was an okay PPV (11.22). Owens VS Ambrose was really good. Paige VS Charlotte was probably my favorite match. And celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Undertaker debuting was good. The match was alright, but the entrance and his exit were very well done.



- Ordered the Arcana Artifact from Scam School (11.23). I thought I would spend a long time and give up in trying to open it. But working at an escape room made it hard to not get in through alternate means. I was able to get it open, but I don't know the meaning behind all the markings, patterns, and pictures all over the artifact. That I would like to know some day.


- Got a text on a Monday about doing karaoke that night (11.23). I was interested, but my friend at first said it would only be 3 of us. That seemed a bit weird to me. But he got back to me saying a bunch of others were coming and I was in.

I left after Paige VS Charlotte on RAW and got there around 9:30. While there weren't a lot of people there, it was still a fun house. Befriended new people, caught up with friends I had not seen in a while, and had a wonderful time singing my head off to almost every song that was chosen. It was a shame that I could only stay for an hour. Well...a little over an hour as the last few songs kept pulling me in to stay, ha. Good times.


- The reason I was only able to stay at karaoke for an hour was because I was asked to pick up and dog-sit Machete (11.23). The person Machete was left with was just going to leave her in the garage and the weather had been getting too cold. So I said I can take her for the weekdays and then bring her back on the weekend. Last time I saw Machete was when I went to San Antonio earlier this year.


- For those that don't know me well, I don't like Thanksgiving. For at least 5 year now, I have opted out of all family related Thanksgiving activities. Long story short, something bad always happened and I just avoid it altogether. For this Thanksgiving (11.26), I was actually under the weather. For the majority of the day, I slept just like Machete did.


Unfortunately, I did find out some sad news. Machete's younger sister, Linguini, passed away about 3 weeks ago. She got run over by a car. Ever since then, Machete has been really depressed and eating a lot. And things started to click in my head. Machete had gained a bit of weight from when I saw her earlier this year. Not only that, she had been really low on energy and would mostly lie down and sleep. She also was very clingy. Ever since finding out the news of Linguini's passing, I can see Machete's depression. It's a sad situation, but I took care of her as best as I could while I had her.

- I didn't go out to shop on Black Friday (11.27), but I did order stuff online. A total of 8 items (one free) and those consist of clothes, a movie, an eShop game, and a few amiibo. One of those items came in that Sunday (mail on Sundays?).

 

- Bayonetta: Bloody Fate was half off on Amazon and apparently I picked up the last copy. It was very well done. They stayed very faithful to the style, the action, the music (minus Fly Me To The Moon), and all the over-the-top Bayonetta is known for. They pretty much retold the story of the first Bayonetta game in 90 minutes. I enjoyed being in that crazy world again.

- Congratulations to my friend, the owner and lead chef of Bite Macarons, for launching bite CAKES (11.28). She always made great cakes. I knew she would eventually start selling them in her shop.

 
- My younger cousin got married (11.28). Asked for the day off way ahead of time to make sure I could attend. Tried to get a +1, but was unsuccessful. Anyways, I rode with my parents to the ceremony that was in a church maybe 10 minutes away from home. It was great seeing cousins I had not seen in a while there.

The ceremony was great. I couldn't help but smile seeing family members that were part of the ceremony walk the aisle. And I was tearing up almost immediately seeing my cousin walk the aisle. Of course she was crying and so was the groom. The ceremony was short, only half an hour. There was a lot of time for photos afterwards. My younger cousin and his girlfriend came to talk to me. I had not met her before, but knew of her since they had been dating for years now. Soon after, I ended up going back home to rest since the reception wasn't for another four hours.

The reception hall was fancy. Lots of waiters and waitresses walking around serving drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Then I started running into a bunch of people I had not seen in a long time. Two of them being younger cousins I used to take care of decades ago. Funny thing, we were all in the bathroom at the same time, but I didn't recognize them. To be fair, one looks very different now, ha. The three of us hung out with each other for the majority of the reception to catch up with others as well.

Also ran into the groom and spoke with him for the first time. Apparently my younger cousin he married has told stories about me, ha. That's cool. Hopefully this will be the start of seeing some of the family a bit more often.

Fun reception. Good food served. The band was really good (forgot to ask for the name or at least get a photo with the red-haired singer). There wasn't as much dancing as I would have hoped. Well, there was, but there were large lulls in between sets where only a few were on the floor. I got out a few times and got into and lead a few of the line dances that were done (and that I learned on the spot). Myself and another cousin participated in being a human pyramid for the groom (that was tough, but fun).

A lot of the family started to leave around 10-10:30. I made sure to go around to say bye to my cousins that were still there. So much has happened and we've all grown up and gone our separate ways (marriage, kids, work, life, etc) that occasions like this where we all have fun are needed. I also made sure to say bye to the groom even though he had been drinking a lot. And finally I said bye to my cousin. She was very thankful that I came and I told her how she had me tearing up at the ceremony. She started to tear up and we just embraced for a while. We grew up together and were really close. Like the rest, we went our separate ways, but there was no way I would miss her wedding. I'm very happy for her. Congratulations.


=========================

- Started off the month by getting the Mii Fighter amiibo set (11.01). Just went to my nearby Toys R Us, saw they had 11 sets of them left, got mine, and went home. I'm glad they sold it as a set because if they sold them separately, I probably would not have bought them. amiibo count rose to 38.


- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) - Review

Bottom line, I liked playing the demo with my coworkers more than playing the game solo. I'll come back and play it again when the update comes December.

- The update for Super Mario Maker came out. I had not thought of a course theme immediately to make implementing some of the updates like checkpoints, but I eventually made one. I just thought of what was something I really liked this year. Ultimately thought of Bayley and Sasha Banks and thus came the course called Hug Like A Boss (11.10). I did edit it once after initially uploading it. Don't remember why, but it was just a small change.


As for the rest of Super Mario Maker, I have been playing it  to unlock more amiibo stuff whenever I get new ones, play and beat the special events, and check the records of my courses every Sunday.

- The first Nintendo Direct after Iwata's passing happened (11.12). It was amazing. So many things were talked about. I added quite a few games to my list of what I will buy. The next day I went to preorder two of them, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD and Mega Man Legacy Collection. Specifically got those two because of the Wolf Link amiibo and Gold Mega Man amiibo. Lucky I reserved Mega Man as my GameStop only had 3 spots to reserve the game. I was the second person to reserve it.

And to top off the end of a great Nintendo Direct, Cloud will be in Smash Bros. It was actually spoiled for me by a coworker (couldn't watch the video live since I was at work). Even though I knew about it, seeing the trailer was so good. Goosebumps.


- I had reserved Mewtwo and Tom Nook amiibo from Best Buy. Went to pick them up (11.13). It was my first time reserving something at Best Buy. It was fine. I just didn't like the huge sticker with my name they put on it. It's a good system, but the sticker was an eyesore. It came off easy at least. Next stop was GameStop to reserve the games I mentioned earlier. Even the worker there asked "which ones are you picking up" knowing that I was collecting amiibo. Had I known they would have been well stocked, I would have gone to them. He understood though. Better to have them than not. And these latest pick ups brought my amiibo total to 40. And here I was a year ago thinking I wouldn't buy more than a few, ha.


- Nintendo's Cyber Deals (11.26) was stacked with some good deals. Most of them I already had. While there were a few of them I wouldn't have minded buying, I didn't want to spend a lot considering I have a few games I have yet to beat. So I just bought 3D Sonic The Hedgehog. I had been curious about the 3D remakes of some of the Sega games (Sonic and Streets of Rage), but this was at a good cheap price.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/915298651891469

- I had a Thanksgiving tradition of playing a Zelda game for the holiday.

Thanksgiving 2011 - Skyward Sword
Thanksgiving 2012 - Nintendo Land - The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest 
Thanksgiving 2013 - A Link Between Worlds
Thanksgiving 2014 - Hyrule Warriors

Unfortunately, I didn't play a Zelda game this year. Sure, I can say I played/finished Tri Force Heroes in November at least, but I didn't actually play any games for Thanksgiving as I was sick. Although had Zelda Wii U or Twilight Princess HD came out, I would have tried to play it regardless of being sick.

- Typoman (Wii U) - Review

I was really looking forward to Typoman. That might be the reason I was a bit meh on it. I liked it, but I wish there was more to it.


=========================

- Our first HER Halloween Contest concluded. I'll admit that I didn't think we would get any entries, but we got quite a few especially on Halloween night. Thank you to all that participated.


- It wasn't planned, but myself, Agent Blue, and Agent Gig all had on the colors of the Tri Force Heroes. We decided to take another commemorative photo as the Tri Force Agents (11.07). It happened again the week after. It hasn't happened a third week yet because we've all had schedule shifts in which we didn't close together. But soon.


- It's rare for it to happen, but it was all guys at HER (11.12). Not only was it sillier/stupider (ha), but we decided to capitalize on a not booked session by taking a photo together. We dubbed it the Hunks of HER. I asked the girls the next day if they wanted to do a Honeys of HER photo. They declined, ha.


- We now have leaderboards on our website (11.16). It will display the all time best team per room as well as the best team of the month.

http://www.houstonescaperoom.com/leaderboard/

- We had our monthly meeting the week Agent Raynor (formerly Ro) was in town (11.17). Not many of the Agents were able to attend unfortunately. We ended up playing Loaded Questions and it was rather fun.  

- Gave a shout out to my fellow Agents on Miiverse in Typoman (11.20).


- Agent M and I secretly devised a plan to surprise Agent Raynor at the meeting. We showed him the final version of a trailer I made for The Scarlet Scam. He very much approved of it and we're planning to do trailers for our other rooms as well. We officially released the trailer (11.20) for the HER community and let them know that the room will be ready December 1st. While we are working out final kinks, we had to make the date official just to stop holding it off. So expect to read about how the room is going in next month's entry. 


- And the last week of November was not busy for me at HER. I actually only worked 2 days (Tuesday, Wednesday). Then we were off for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Then it was my cousin's wedding. And finally it was a normal day off.

- I did finally go back to work on a Monday, our closed day, to do filming for trailers for our rooms (11.30). It went rather well. Lasted a little longer than I estimated, but we got the majority of things done. We just couldn't do one voice over since neither of us could do a certain voice. Agent Mo was very cooperative and very helpful in helping with filming ideas since she is a videographer. Stay tuned for those trailers soon.  

=========================

- Happy Birthday, BoA! (11.05)
https://www.instagram.com/p/9qp5P0n1IA/

Lookbook (MV short version)

NOWNESS Best of Asia 15th Anniversary

BoA - Kiss My Lips (Japanese MV short version)

- And that should be it. 2015 is almost over. November was an interesting month in all aspects. I'm sure I'll have quite a few things to talk about in December though.

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


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, November 8, 2015

October 2015 Entry




October was definitely a long month.

=========================

- NXT Takeover: Respect (10.07) was amazing. The entire card was full of great talent and action. But the match of the night (possibly of the year) was Sasha Banks VS Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship in an Ironman Match. Everything about that match was spectacular. One of the highlights was Sasha Banks' interaction with Bayley's number 1 fan, Izzy. My goodness, that moment epitomized Sasha Banks' character and will be replayed many times. The congratulations the 2 women received from the locker room and from the audience...very much deserved. I cried tears of joy at the end of the match and afterwards. Very proud of those 2. I've rewatched their match multiple times and it still gives me chills.  


- Bought the Sting: Into The Light blu-ray (10.13). Took me a little over a week to finish watching all of it. Great documentary of Sting and him coming to the WWE. Very much recommended to all Sting fans.


- During an unexpected day off from work, I ended up watching Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F (10.24). I was always told it was one of the better DBZ movies and I agree. Fun action and good fights. Highly recommend it for any DBZ fan.  

- Hell In A Cell was a good PPV (10.25). All of the matches were entertaining. Highlights for me was the surprise return of Alberto Del Rio (and he won, yay), the Divas match (Nikki and Charlotte put on a heck of a brutal match), and Lesnar VS Undertaker (nice end to their feud and nice lead in for Survivor Series with The Wyatt Family).  

- I finally got to meet my cousin's son for his first birthday (10.31). I don't even remember when they last visited, but I wasn't able to attend. It was supposed to be a costume party, but only myself and 2 other cousins dressed up. I used my Discount Demon outfit again (mentioned later in this post). When I came in, I was greeted by one of my other cousins in her wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man costume she made. It was hilarious. I told her later that obviously she would be the one that would do that, ha.

It was good to see my cousin, her husband, and her son (he's a cute fellow). We played some kid games (pin the eye on the Monsters Inc character, the party decorations theme was Monsters Inc), ate food, played games (I played Mortal Kombat X for the first time), had cake, pet some dogs, caught up with others, talked about HER, opened gifts, found out one of my other younger cousins was dating someone, and it ended with most of the party guests leaving and only the cousins/sisters staying to watch/nap the movie Home. And the most important thing was that we all laughed a lot at/with each other.

This was a much needed day off. Didn't worry (too much) about work and just enjoyed being with family and having a good time with good people.

=========================

- Thanks to a recent sale on ThinkGeek, I impulse bought the Mega Man Mega Buster (10.02). It is cool. I was very impressed with build of it and the accurate sound effects it plays as you use it. Glad to have it. Perhaps I'll get a helmet one of these days.
  

- I beat Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (10.05). As I mentioned last month, it was very fun playing. Definitely delivered a different challenge from the original Shovel Knight. Great free content from Yacht Club Games.


- Super Mario Maker (Wii U) - Review 

It's a super fun game that I was playing daily. But I did hit a ceiling with it once I capped the awards for beating the normal courses in the 100 Mario Challenge. I attempted to do a set of expert courses and it was taking a long time, I died a lot, and I skipped tons of courses I could not beat. I ended up not finishing one full series of expert courses. Since then, I have only come back to check out the stats of my courses after a week.

I will definitely come back to create a new course once the new set of free DLC additions comes out on the 4th of November.

- I only bought 2 new amiibo this month (10.09, 10.18); Chibi-Robo and Light Blue Yarn Yoshi. I might add the Green and Pink and Mega Yarn Yoshi amiibo to my collection soon. We shall see.



- Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash (3DS) - Review

While I really only bought the game for the amiibo (which will be sold separately soon), the game was not that bad. My biggest beef was the ending portion, which I mentioned in my review. Other than that, I enjoyed my time playing it (around 16 hours). Never cared about the other Chibi-Robo games, but I might be in for a sequel to Zip Lash.


- Bought The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (10.24). The demo was fun so I was amped for playing the full version of the game. I ended up finishing the game on November 1st. The review is already out, but I'll post it and talk a little more about it in next month's entry.


- I also downloaded Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (10.24). I was excited to get back into the Fatal Frame series, which is my favorite survival horror series. While I wanted to always play it at night to have the proper mood, I'm having to play to play during the day while I have time for it. So far, so good. 


=========================

- One of the big things that happened this month at the Houston Escape Room is that we started to have beta testing for our new room; Episode 3: The Scarlet Scam. One thing we were worried about was if the room was too difficult for first timers. So we put a few things in place. We made sure to put on our website that these were beta tests. Another thing was that we made customers answer a question as the sign up and that was if they had been to an escape room before.

Unfortunately our first team (10.09) was full of first timers. 1 had been to our original location and invited 2 friends. Another couple had been to another escape room and invited a friend. And the last 3 were 12 year old girls that have never been to one before, but heard about escape rooms from their teacher. And...it was bad. A few of the first timers broke things, a lot of things got bypassed or opened up when they weren't supposed to be opened, and overall there was just a bad vibe.

With each beta test, we also tell the group we will talk to them afterwards to ask questions and get feedback. The 3 girls couldn't stay since their parents wanted to them to leave. They at least told me they had fun. The rest...gave a lot of negative feedback (like 75% negative). One guy in particular was just a douchebag from the start. It didn't even look like he wanted to be there and that he was just a third wheel to his friends. Other staff members agreed on that. He just did not get into the game and questioned many things like "why would someone have a security system that does ___? It doesn't make sense." While it was an overall bad first public beta test, it was good that we saw them do things we did not consider or think of. But it did force us to cancel the next day's testing since things broke and needed to be repaired at least in time for the testing the day after. I called the owner afterwards to let him know how it went and yeah...I was not happy with it. 

- We did get things fixed and repaired for the next group of beta testers (10.11). I mentioned going to League City with Agent M to speak in front of a class of kids about escape rooms. This group was the teacher and her friends that really liked when they did their first escape room with us.

This was definitely better than the previous test. They also gave a lot of great feedback. They actually were very talkative and we (and even their own members) had to pull on their reigns to make sure they weren't going off topic. But they all really liked it and it definitely made me and the staff feel better after the disastrous test a few days prior. 

- We unfortunately had a power outage (10.13). We had minimal power so only a few rooms had lights (none of the escape rooms though). Those of us there spent time setting up some of the Halloween decorations and calling customers to let them know we were cancelling. A few hours later, we went to Tout Suite to send out emails to customers and send out refunds. I think we wrapped up around 7PM and just went home for the day. The power was restored the next day.

- Agent M was sick so I had to fill in for him for a few days (10.14). Those were long days since I essentially had to be there from opening to close to cover for him. At least they were productive days, but I was getting tired. Thankfully he was back to work after a couple days of absence. 

- We were contacted by a local media crew, Channel 8, to do a feature story on HER (10.17). The emails went back and forth for a while and weren't the smoothest. But the staff was ready (all with their company shirts on) and I was to be the liaison for the camera crew when they arrive.  

They were actually late by about half an hour. But after that, things went rather well. The film crew (college students) were alright. I wasn't that high on the director as he was treating his crew kind of rough. I did let them know I had previous filming experience so they were actually open to me giving suggestions and directing them and (of course) to tell them what they cannot film. The family that was going to be filmed were contacted ahead of time and they were actually jazzed to be filmed (some more than others). 

After the session, they also interviewed some of the family members and some of the staff. Everything went well. We're still waiting on the final video product (even as of typing this 11.08). Hopefully it turns out well. They did say they would let us see a preview in case we want them to change things. I hope they stick with that.

- I received download codes for The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes demo and I offered the extra 2 to Agent Blue and Agent Gig. We had been talking for a while about figuring out a day to get together to try it out since you have to have 3 people to try the demo. And while I was randomly checking who would be working (10.17) and saw that all 3 of us were closing.

We made sure to do all our closing duties before trying the demo. It turned out to be a short demo (level 1-2) and we did pretty well as a team. It was fun, but again, short. So we decided to try it again, but without talking out loud and using the communication icons the game has. That turned out to be hilarious. Even though we already knew what to do, it definitely was a different experience. There was one part where we needed to totem and Agent Gig and I ended up running in circles chasing each other trying to start the totem, ha. Good fun.


- And the beta tests kept happening (10.18). We had a few happen, but the one on this day was spectacular. They comprised of some of my friends, Agent Yeti's boyfriend and some of her friends (some first timers), and Agent Audrey. It was great seeing Agent Audrey again after so many months. And it was funny seeing her and her brother, Agent Incognito, interact with each other.

The test went over well. They provided some really good feedback and all had a great time. After this and a few other random tests we had (corporate), I started to feel better that Scarlet's room is actually suitable for first timers. 


Although during a random beta test that happened, a vital thing broke and we've had to pump the brakes on any testing until it is fixed.

- Agents ECx2 arrived for their monthly visit. It's always great when they're around. Other than them being around, we had our monthly meeting (10.22). I actually chose this month's activity and had the Agents play Spin The Bottle: Bumpie's Party. I moderated and helped explain the games as everyone else participated in the hilarity. I'm glad everyone had a fun time.

Afterwards, the Agents were busy setting up the rest of the Halloween decorations. At one point, Agent Blue tried out some of my Super Mario Maker courses. I understand how it truly feels to see people play your levels. Fun night.  

- Now I can't speak in detail about what happened on the 23rd, but it was in direct response to what happened on the 22nd. It was a very unfortunate series of events and definitely stands as the biggest thing we've had to deal with at HER.

As we were closing up that night, a lot of us were dumbfounded and out of it. I ended up going to eat with Agents ECx2 to decompress. It was good though. We knew we weren't going to let this keep us down. Funny enough, 2-3 of us got very appropriate fortune cookies that night (mine is the one on the left).


We also had to close down that same weekend due to the impending hurricane. It was a few rough days, but we were able to get things back on track. We also are on the road to making improvements that needed to happen sooner rather than later. 

- A few days later (10.28), I had a meeting with Agents ECx2. It was essentially for them to thank and congratulate me for my one year of service to the company. It was very heartwarming to listen to their appreciation. I was feeling very proud. As I've told them, this is the best job I've ever had. I thank them for being a part of a great team.

We had a follow up meeting a few days later with the Senior Facilitators to talk about the future of the company and the direction we may be heading. It's an exciting time. 

- Halloween! Agent Yeti was in charge of setting up decorations and theming our rooms to have a Halloween vibe to them. It really did get me excited for Halloween more than in the past few years. It was definitely cool to see everything come together.


 


And during the week of Halloween, I decided to dress up for each day of work. All were characters with my own spin on them. I was Business Casual Goku, Modern Day Jump 'N Shoot Man, Fancy Sub-Zero, and Discount Demon.


I actually attempted to do face paint for Discount Demon. I applied black paint all over my face and was getting ready to use some red to outline my face. It was at that time that the paint started to harden and it felt uncomfortable. I kept going for a while, but I started to feel claustrophobic. So I ended up washing it all off. Next time, I'll have to get help with any type of paint job on my body. Some day.

=========================

- Ailee - Insane (MV)

Sucks that Ailee got injured before her performances. At least she still performed. I think it was for the better as she got to focus on the vocals.

- TaeYeon - I (MV)

It's been a long time coming, but TaeYeon finally has her solo album. And of course, it's really good. It was also cool that she got her own little concert, but I would have liked to have seen her do more stage performances of I.

- Stephanie - Up and Up (MV)

Cool to see Stephanie performing again. I kind of like her previous song better than Up and Up though. But I do like that she made an appearance on Running Man. It has been a long time since she had done any variety shows.

- f(x) - 4 Walls (MV)

f(x) returns as a 4 member group now. Great to see them back. The album is not so bad with some good tracks. 4 Walls hasn't hooked me yet, but it is one of their better songs to me.

- In case you never knew what my 3 main hobbies are, I got all 3 of these items on the same day (10.23).  


- I've had really dry eyes over the last month (continues in November). For a while, I didn't do anything about it because it was a short lived nuisance. But the dryness started to last longer and longer. Finally bought some eye drops and they have helped. The dryness doesn't happen that often, but it still occurs more than I would like. It does force me to (at least when I'm home) stay off my computer. It sucks the most when I'm driving. I have plenty of eye drops to last for a while though.   

- October is over. So much happened. I've been busier than ever. I'm glad to say that the goods are outweighing the bad. The one thing I could ask for is a little more free time to hang out with people that want to see me. 

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

 
 
 

PS: BoA with dark black hair, gorgeous. 

"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, October 1, 2015

September 2015 Entry



September felt long.

=========================

- Thanks to certain people. I also chopped off 5 inches of my hair.

- Got some new Finn Bálor merchandise (arrived 09.03).

- Made plans to meet up with 2 different sets of friends (09.06). The first set was to meet 2 girls from the flash mob who I was still in contact with. They offered to take me out to lunch. Ended up meeting them at Jupiter (had not been there for a while). It was a long wait, but we just shared stories and caught up. When we finally did eat, we each ordered a waffle and shared a pizza (didn't take photos, but they were all good). We were also witness to some gathering where a large group was standing in line to take photos with local celebrities (didn't see who they were).


Went back home to rest for a couple hours (it was hot outside) before meeting with my other friends for dinner. Met them at their place. Caught up a little and played with their kids before going to Gringo's. It was during dinner that my friend started referring me to her son as "Uncle Arnell." It was really uplifting to actually be called that. Back to their place after dinner to play Mario Party 10 (now I've played all console Mario Party games). A fun and memorable day.

- My Ranma 1/2 Blu-Ray collection is now complete (09.10). Have I watched a single episode ever since I started collecting these? No, ha. But it wasn't that long ago that I watched all the episodes (English) on YouTube. If I'm ever afforded a long period of rest, I would probably start trying to watch all of Ranma again, but in Japanese.


- More merchandise arrived in the mail (09.17). Seems that I collect posters now instead of displaying them now.


- NXT came to Houston for the first time (09.17). Insanely fun. Went with a friend I had not seen in a long time and we met with others we knew there. It was pretty much all floor seating unless you were in the upper deck areas. It was also in a small building, which I only recognized once we were there. Last time I was there was to watch roller derby.

Our initial seats were great, but we sat directly behind a tall and big guy so we couldn't see much when he stood. Not only that, we were sitting next to a guy who was "smart" and was trying to be funny most of the time. I noticed that the final rows behind us weren't being filled. I told my friend that we should switch and move back there during intermission, which we did. We sat in the final floor row at the back towards the middle directly where the wrestlers would direct themselves were there a camera there. Every time I stood up, I pretty much was jumping around in the aisle since there was no one around us. And I screamed and chanted so much that night. NXT, please come back to Houston.   

Enzo Amore & Cassidy VS Jason Jordan & Chad Gable
I knew they would open the show. Enzo definitely gets the crowd hype. It was so fun to actually spell out SAWFT with a rowdy crowd.

Tye Dilinger VS Bull Dempsey
Everyone was behind Bull (screaming Fit along with his entrance theme). But everyone was also behind Dilinger (screaming out 10 at proper times).

Solomon Crowe VS Apollo Crews
A nice singles match. Crowe and Crews have excellent chemistry in the ring together. Good to note that after the match, Crews pointed to a banner in the rafters that said "Performance Center > Power Plant."

Baron Corbin VS Samoa Joe
When Baron Corbin came out, I turned to my friend saying "Oh my gosh, we're going to get Samoa Joe." It might have even been us that started the "Joe's gonna kill you" chants. Never thought I'd ever see Samoa Joe perform live so this was awesome.

Carmella VS Dana Brooke
Coming in from intermission, they had been showing clips of the Divas so we knew we were getting one next. Carmella looks incredible in person. She has improved a lot in the ring, but not at the level of the 4 Horesewomen. Carmella was actually the only Face that lost this whole night.

Blake & Murphy VS The Vaudevillains
Great tag match. The crowd was into posing with The Vaudevillains as well as counting as they did squats. And while the crowd had chanted "test of strength" during other matches that night, it finally happened in this match and got a great ovation. And Alexa Bliss looks incredibly pretty in person.

Emma VS Bayley
Fantastic women's wrestling match. Emma was well received and the crowd absolutely loved Bayley. I was jumping up and down so much for her. I even held my hands in the shape of a heart above my head during her entrance and exit.

Tyler Breeze VS Finn Bálor
Obviously a great match from these two. While we wanted to see the Demon, it's obviously reserved for Takeover events (and should stay that way). Being part of a live crowd and raising our arms up in the air during his entrance was amazing.


- The wrestling did not stop after NXT. Night of Champions happened the following Sunday (09.20). It was rough trying to find someone to go with to this as a lot of maybes turned out to be no and there were last minute purchases that happened that I wasn't a part of. I ended up texting a friend who wasn't into wrestling thinking that he would at least enjoy it and he took me up on the offer. Treated him for this event and bought our tickets two days before the PPV. He met me at my place and I drove us there. During that drive, we talked about what he did know about wrestling and his interest in going. I caught him up on a bit of things and then we just had normal conversations as we were waiting in line outside of the Toyota Center. Got to our seats (section 107, row 9, seats 1-2) and waited for the show to commence.


Stardust & The Ascension VS The Lucha Dragons & Neville
Fun match on the preshow to get the crowd hyped. I was only disappointed to not get a chance to see the Red Arrow live and in person.

Ryback VS Kevin Owens
The crowd was definitely behind Owens. The place went crazy when he won the IC Championship. Props to him and Ryback for putting on a good opening match.

Dolph Ziggler VS Rusev
Solid match. I thought I spoiled the ending of the match for myself. I saw the hanging mechanism for when and where they would drop Rusev's flag for when he would win, but that didn't happen. So I was surprised to see Ziggler get the win.

The New Day VS The Dudley Boyz
Excellent tag match. I'm glad to see The New Day being well received by the crowd. Woods on the trombone is so silly, but it works. Never thought I would see the Dudley Boyz in person let alone a 3D through a table. 

Nikki Bella VS Charlotte
The ladies delivered a great match. It was unbelievable to be there as Charlotte won the Divas Championship. And then having Ric Flair come out and celebrate with her, incredible moment. Paige and Becky Lynch look very good in person.

The Wyatt Family VS Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose & Chris Jericho
Everyone erupted when Y2J's countdown hit. I don't think anyone expected him to be the mystery partner. The match was good and it's good to see the Wyatt Family getting more momentum.

John Cena VS Seth Rollins
Cena and Rollins always put on great matches together. This one was no exception.

Seth Rollins VS Sting
And I never ever thought I would see Sting in person having a match. It was so good to see him still being able to put on a great match. Props to Rollins as well. Although you really could feel the arena get deflated when Sting collapsed. It was a scary sight. Glad he was able to finish the match. The craziness of Sheamus and Kane afterwards was fun and had the crowd on their feet until the end of the show.

My friend had a great time and I was screaming my head off almost the entire time. My friend mentioned that this was the most passionate he had ever seen me, which he enjoyed. He also saw things about wrestling that he never knew about like the connection with the fans especially the kids. We went to eat at FuFu afterwards and just talk a bit more before heading back to his car and split. Such a fun night and memorable week of live wrestling.

PS: Our seats were on camera. When I rewatched the PPV, I spotted myself a good 5 or so times in quick shots. But I was clearly visible when Seth Rollins came out for his match with Cena.


- After a late night of work (09.23), I had to get gas for the car. Stopped inside to get a drink and chips and a person next to me was staring at me. An exclamation from both of us came up as we recognized each other. Although I felt bad that I only remembered his nickname we gave him, Grando. It was cool seeing him after 14-15 years. Last I saw him was after he graduated highschool before he joined the military. We spoke for a bit before parting ways saying that we needed to catch up (soon hopefully). The whole way home, I was still in shock seeing Grando, ha.

- A friend and I were going to meet up (09.27). She initially contacted me the week before when she was in town, but it was too last minute to make plans. So I was looking forward to this meeting. Unfortunately, she got injured and we had to cancel plans. She apologized a lot because every time we tried to get together, something big happens and we have to cancel. And we were disappointed that it had been a year since we last saw each other. I joked that we talk more about meeting each other than actually meeting, ha. But we're both determined to try and hang out more once she's all healed up.

=========================

- In regards to my WingedVoX gaming accounts (Facebook, Twitter), I know I've mentioned a few times that I would pull back from it or eventually stop. But I still find myself using it. While I have been more busy with work, the Twitter account isn't as active with retweets. Facebook has been easier to manage as I actually schedule almost every post to happen within different intervals. Although any Miiverse posts go up almost immediately. At some point I might have my Miiverse posts just post on personal accounts, but we'll see.

- Runbow (Wii U eShop) - Review
While I was on the fence about this game after trying the Nindie demo, I still decided to get it. And it is pretty fun. I have yet to complete the single player though. I tried online a few times and was instantly caught up in the hectic pace having more people on screen was. It is a game I'd like to try with others sometime just to hear all of us screaming, ha. I recommend it.

- Don't know what it was, but I decided to rewatch all of the cutscenes from Final Fantasy IV (DS) (09.08). It might have been because I watched all of Crisis Core and Injustice last month. It was good to see again. It did make me realize that there were a few other key scenes I would've like to have seen voiced.


- Super Mario Maker has taken up most of my game time. Ever since I bought it (09.11), I have at least put in an hour each day (most I've played it in one day was 5 hours). At first I thought I would spend more time playing levels, but I think I've spent an equal amount of time making levels. There is something about it being so easy and accessible to do that draws you in to making more. As of typing this, I have 7 courses uploaded and 2 of them have yet to be cleared by anyone (other than myself). If you have the game, send me your course codes and try out the ones I created.

- Run Devil Run (V2) - 8DD5-0000-0042-3766
- 6 Coins - 1459-0000-0032-3553
- Learning How To Swim - 3BE0-0000-0042-39CB
- Castle Hassle - 4E73-0000-0042-4D4D
- Up In The Sky - 4895-0000-0058-FD29
- To The Left - 2B85-0000-0061-928D
- Confined Spaces - 8365-0000-0078-6599



- Thanks to a coupon from ThinkGeek, I bought the Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past comic for half the price (09.15). Unfortunately, I'm treating it like a strategy guide and have not opened it to read. Guess that qualifies it as a collector's item for me.


- Yacht Club games finally released their latest DLC for Shovel Knight; Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (09.17). Plague Knight plays completely differently from Shovel Knight and it's great and challenging. Makes it feel like a whole new game. I haven't finished it, but I think I'm a little more than half way done (as of typing this). Everyone that bought Shovel Knight should get and play this FREE DLC.


- Add more items to my Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney and DS collections. I ordered the Gyakuten Kenji Premium Edition DSi. It also came with the Japanese version of the first Gyakuten Kenji. I had my eye on this for a while but finally got it (09.23). Everything works and is in great condition.


- And add 6 new amiibo to my collection, which brings the total up to 33. Ganondorf, Zero Suit Samus, 30th Anniversary Mario Classic Color came in first (09.12). Then R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt came together in the Retro 3-Pack (09.25). Next ones I'm looking to get are the 30 Anniversary Mario Modern Color, Chibi-Robo (pre-ordered), the Yarn Yoshis (if not all, at least Light Blue), the 3 Mii Fighters (if they come in a 3 pack), Mewtwo (maybe), and Mega Yarn Yoshi (maybe).



- And there was new Smash Bros DLC that came out (09.30). This included new outfits (not planning on buying any) and new stages; Super Mario Maker, Pirate Ship, and Duck Hunt (3DS). It's always fun jumping back into Smash Bros when new DLC is released.

=========================

- We picked up 2 new trainees at HER. Haven't taken photos of them like we had been for trainees in the past. I think from now on we will take their photo when they are done with training. Felt bad after a couple of them had left and we had touted them joining the team.

- We received a note from the parking company that the lots we normally park at (those of us with parking passes) will not be available for a week and that management was training. Thankfully they gave us an alternate lot to use. We also found out why the lot would be unavailable for a week; Taylor Swift. Her concert was in town and so were her stage trucks (09.08, 09.09). We did think it would be funny to invite Taylor Swift to HER. While I tweeted her myself, we didn't pull the trigger on HER contacting her. It would have been cool were she to reply. That would be the greatest advertisement we would had not planned, ha. 



- Since school is back in session, we had a few days where there weren't any bookings for all the time slots. While we remained productive, silliness did ensue (09.08).


- We had been emailing a teacher back and forth that is actually teaching a class in how to build escape rooms at school. She even got the kids in her class to take field trips to HER and she had come with friends (I wasn't there for any of it). But we were also invited to come speak in front of her class. Originally, I wasn't part of the plan, but since I am in charge of the 3rd Room, I was nominated.

Woke up early to head out to League City (09.14). Met up with Agent M and we waited for the teacher to come bring us in. Once the bell rang, we were introduced to the class. I was Agent 262228 for the day. The 40 or so kids paid attention as Agent M gave his slideshow presentation. I was mainly there to answer questions. Their questions and participation was good, but we did get some of the typical questions we get from customers. One thing I distinctly remember was being asked the escape rate percentage. I asked them how many had been to HER (2/3) and how many have escaped. The answer was 1 and it was their teacher and they were amazed by that number.

We took photos with them (haven't posted since we don't have permission yet) and the kids gave us some of their puzzles on paper. Immediately on seeing it, I already knew one of the answers, ha. Turns out most were plagiarized and that was something the teacher spoke about at the beginning. And the teacher's enthusiasm sparked my interest in having her be a beta tester for the 3rd Room. Once we start the next batch of trials, we'll invite her and her friends to come back. Plus the teacher can come back to her class and let them know how to ask for feedback.

All in all, it was a good experience. Never thought I would ever be invited to a school to talk about what I do for a living. 

- And it finally happened. We had our first batch of beta testing for the 3rd Room (09.15). Episode 3: The Scarlet Scam was put through the paces. I was a little nervous driving in to work that day. As we were doing final preparations for it, one important part of the room wasn't functioning and I was getting frustrated. Agent Ro could tell. I reminded him that I was feeling similarly frustrated like when we did the KHOU shoot. We were able to apply a "band-aid" solution, but it was definitely a big concern.

The first team to be our beta testers were actually Agent Ro's wife and friends of the business, a total of 6 (one of them had not done an escape room before). Agent Ro was there as well, but he wanted to just sit back and take notes since he knew where everything was (did a dry run through days before). It was cool to see the room in action. I did have to give them nudges as it was apparent at one point that they weren't making a lot of progress. After time was up, we asked them questions and got a lot of great feedback. I thanked each one of them for coming to beta test the room.

Before they left, I brought them into our conference room where our team meeting was in progress. For a lot in the room, these were all new faces. So we did some introductions and got some laughs from what some of us were saying. I now have the phrase "I brought that in" in regards to Agent Yeti, ha. The crew left and the meeting continued.

Afterwards, the staff were the next group to beta test the room. Everyone started acting like our common annoying customers and asked the typical questions. It was alright for a while. Unfortunately, I didn't know if some of them were still pretending, but I was disappointed with the team and how they were going through the room. Sure, I gave them an extra rule; to not solve puzzles they personally worked on, but to help others that didn't know figure it out. That took out some key players and also showed weaknesses of others. Not only that, the "band-aid" solution we put in earlier in the day actually fell and broke. A few other things happened that I was just frustrated by and I wasn't having fun. Agent Ro could see my frustration and said not to take it out on them. It was...overwhelming and I couldn't hide it. After the team escaped, I left the room to cool off. I did apologize for my b!tching, but in the end thanked them.

As we were all getting ready to leave, I did go up to a few Agents in particular to personally thank them for being integral in the 3rd Room getting to this point. Ever since then, we had been making fixes and changes to prepare for the next set of beta trials. We are a little delayed, but we'll hopefully get the next beta testers in soon.  

I did make it a point to apologize to Agent Ro because he had seen me at my worst. He told me something that I had never heard before. Basically that my anger was reflective of my passion for what I do. I'll remember him telling me that for a long time.


- We had some a/c issues again towards the end of the month. Similar to the other time, we closed early (09.30) and made plans to go to another escape room. Agent Yeti and I were out shopping for Halloween items so we were out already. We also went off to eat dinner (finally got to talk to her on a personal level) while the others ate dinner elsewhere. Met up to tackle the other room at the business we went to last time we closed up due to the a/c.

Glad to report that we escaped and set the record for that room  by escaping in 24 minutes (one hour time limit). I even started my new thing, which is roll out of the room when we escape, ha. We went to Honey Bee afterwards for drinks and to talk about the room. It was a general consensus that we were disappointed with the room. While most were able to say at least one thing they liked about it, I couldn't. The room was underwhelming overall for me. That room unfortunately is ranked as one of the lowest on my list of escape rooms I've been to. At least my record is now 7-2.


=========================

- Red Velvet - Dumb Dumb (MV)


- Amber - Beautiful (MV)

- Gary - Get Some Air (MV)

- SNSD - Lion Heart/You Think
Lion Heart came first (09.01). You Think came in about a week later (09.09). And both had Yuri as the random photo cards, ha. Never had that happen before, but I was thrilled since I had been liking Yuri the most during these promotions. And as it was posted earlier, the posters came in later in the month.

I reawatch their episodes on Weekly Idol a lot. I leave it on as background noise sometimes.



https://youtu.be/5nmPXL6aWr0

- September was full of trials and tribulations. Honestly, my body has felt tired more than usual. I also haven't been exercising like I had been for a couple months now so I've lost muscles. The tiredness really takes over. While I get Sundays and Mondays off consecutively, I might have to request a longer period off. Might not be possible unless we hire more full time workers. Plus the 3rd Room probably would have to be officially released before I can do that.

There definitely have been some good things that happened this month. Almost forgot to mention that my dad is back from the Philippines. It was definitely different without him and it's good to have him back. Other than that, I think being called "Uncle Arnell" for the first time is something that will stick with me.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, and be loved.

 
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)