Monday, August 3, 2015

July 2015 Entry



July was a challenging one.

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- For July 4th, I was originally going to go fishing with a friend to continue our yearly tradition. Unfortunately, he was unable to get a babysitter so we had to cancel. I didn't have any other plans so I just caught up on a few things to watch.

The WWE Network aired Beast In The East live early in the morning. I didn't catch it live, but caught the replay. It was great. The Japan crowd is amazing. Finn Balor, congratulations on being the new NXT Champion. You deserve it.

I also finished re-rewatching season one of Invincible Youth. I don't remember why I wanted to watch it again, but it was fun to revisit after so many years.

- My copy of BoA - Here I Am arrived on the 13th. The poster came later (pictured later). I still haven't watched it. July was busy so I haven't just carved a 2 hour block to sit down and watch it. Hopefully some time in August. If not August, I'll definitely make time for it in September.


- One of the greatest things happened on RAW on the 13th, the Divas Revolution. It has already been rumored that some of the NXT women would move up to the main roster. We did not just get one make it to the main roster, we got 3. Becky Lynch, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks. Ever since then, the Divas division has definitely been better. Congratulations to these 3 incredibly talented wrestlers.


- The Death Battle rematch, Goku VS Superman 2, happened on the 18th. I was able to watch it as it aired live from SGC. It was cool that they did a little extra bit for the crowd in attendance. The outcome, very much expected. I did like the first fight better, but the second fight was still fun to watch. Watching the live panel online after it aired, crazy. I understand fandoms and how you strongly back who you like, but geez. Logically explanations and evidence be damned, ha.


- More Kpop items arrived on the 20th. This time it was the BoA poster mentioned earlier and my copy of SNSD's PARTY CD.


- Waking up to read the news of Hulk Hogan (24th) was nuts. I even remember reading his tweet before the news broke out before I went to bed the night before. I was shocked. One of my childhood heroes is basically erased from the history books now. It's totally understandable, but wow. Brings back memories of when Chris Benoit was erased from the history books. It took a year for me to be able to watch a Benoit match without feeling weird. Seeing things with Hogan in it lately, similar feeling. But I'm pretty much going to handle this the way I did with Benoit. I will still appreciate what they did for the wrestling industry, but I don't condone or approve of what they did.  

- On the 28th, I picked up 3 Blu-rays. 2 were DC animated movies; Batman VS Robin and Justice League: Gods & Monsters. The other Blu-ray was The Kliq Rules. 


Batman VS Robin came out back in April, but I forgot about and didn't even hear much about it. The following link are my thoughts on the movie. Short summary: didn't like it.
https://www.facebook.com/arnell.ragasa/posts/10153588934101929?pnref=story

Justice League: Gods & Monsters, I really enjoyed this one. Definitely recommend it. Read my thoughts on it with the next link.
https://www.facebook.com/arnell.ragasa/posts/10153589406741929

I did get through all of The Kliq Rules as well. That was a lot of wrestling, but I had most of the matches on in the background. The documentary part was good. Very much recommended especially if you are a fan HBK, HHH, Nash, Hall, and X-Pac.

- Found out from my mom (07.30.) that my brother is moving out in September. Work is relocating him to Dallas. Never thought this would happen (not to get into the details of why). This did bring up the conversation that I need to help pay more of the bills. I'm okay with that, but my mom gave an underhanded comment about how I have to "start" paying the bills, which she retracted almost immediately because I have been. I've been paying bills and help pay for the vacations my parents take. I do more than my part when it comes to bills. My personal bills aren't that much so paying more bills is fine. I just can't put as much of my paycheck away as I used to.  

- Coming home from a rough day at work at the end of the month, I went to Jack In The Box. Sitting in the drive-thru, I was scrolling through Twitter to catch up on things and came across news that was unexpected. Rowdy Roddy Piper had passed away. "What the f*ck" is what I said out loud. I just could not believe it. He had been doing great and still had plenty to offer. He was only 61. Another childhood hero has passed away. While Dusty Rhodes' passing hurt, this one hurt more as I am a bigger fan of Piper. Thank you for the memories and all that you contributed to the wrestling world.


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- The Wii Fit Trainer amiibo became available on GameStop's site (07.06.15). I snagged it up right away.


- Xenoblade Chronicles 3D...I hit another snag where I had to just level up to progress (07.09.15). I spent a few hours to gain at least 4-5 levels and I still wasn't good enough to beat the boss that I was stuck at. I actually haven't played the game since then. While I know RPGs are supposed to be this way, this normally doesn't happen when I play. Seeing as I don't have a lot of time to play games anymore, I didn't enjoy spending hours just fighting the same enemies to level up. This reminded me of when I was playing Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga. I hit a big road block where the enemies in front of me were too strong to beat and the enemies before me were too weak to level up in a timely fashion. I was enjoying the game too and that is what's happening with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. Don't know if I'll go back to it any time soon unfortunately. This definitely is making me think again about buying Xenoblade Chronicles X.  

- Satoru Iwata...your passing was unexpected. I remember coming home that day on the 12th. I was getting ready to load up YouTube videos to watch while I ate dinner and I saw videos mentioning his passing. I immediately said "what the hell" out loud. While he has had some health issues, he seemed to be doing well on his way to recovery. This one hurt. Satoru Iwata was definitely one very important person in my life in regards to playing video games. It was great to see and read a lot of the positive comments, articles, and tribute videos fans had been making in his honor. His influence will definitely live on in the hearts of many gamers and his family and friends.  

"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." - Satoru Iwata


- Target offered some rare amiibo on the 15th. I was able to get Marth and Rosalina & Luma amiibo. Oddly though, I wasn't able to get them in the same order. I had to pay for shipping twice. Not the worst thing, but I was hoping they could at least bundle the orders together and save a customer some money.


- I started watching The Completionist after he had a few stints on Grumpcade. I knew about him for a long time, but just never went out of the way to watch his videos. Now I've seen most of them (at least for the games I had played or were interested in). Check out his YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThatOneVideoGamer

- The Completionist did do a complete series of videos on Final Fantasy VII and the games that spun off from them. His video Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII got me interested in watching the cut scenes for the game to learn about the story. Found a YouTube video with all of the scenes stitched together and watched all 3 hours of it on the 18th. I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed the game had I played it.


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- Agent Audrey had her last day at HER on the 3rd. It was my day off, but I went to order cupcakes (with a message) to bring for the staff that were there. We ended up sharing a few stories and memories. She's on to greater things, but we do miss her.


- I blanked out on a briefing for the first time ever since working at HER. This happened on the 7th. It was...baffling. I just blanked out and had to ask Agent Blue to continue while I went to the break room. I needed a few minutes to just collect myself, but...yeah, I don't know what happened. I chalked it up to July being an emotional and stressful month in general because of what happened last year. Ever since that blank out, I have found myself not being as smooth with my briefings for either room. It's not so obvious, but I definitely know.   

- The 12th marked one year after going to my first escape room. I let Agent K and Z know that it had been one year since I had met them. The 16th marked one year after I sent HER an email inquiring about employment.

- On the 20th, I met up with Agent Scarlet at HER to do filming for the 3rd Room. It was a day off for me, but we needed to get this done since her schedule was limited as well. It went on a little longer than we had planned and not everything was perfect, but it went really well. Agent Scarlet definitely took on her role and was an amazing actress. Thank you, Agent Scarlet.

The editing process was smooth and only hit a few snags. Definitely was a reminder of why I liked and disliked editing videos, but this time it was more on the positive side. Agent Ro is the only other person to see the clips and he was very impressed with them.  

- Last month, we had a total of 4 trainees. Unfortunately, only 2 are still with us. I mentioned last month that one left us for another job. Another that was Agent Audrey's friend left us saying that she would not be able to meet our expectations that we had set forth considering her already busy schedule. The other 2 that stayed on progressed really well and are now full fledged agents.

Shortly after Agent Pow Poper and Agent Gig became agents, we gained another trainee. This time it was Agent Audrey's brother. So far he has been doing great. He's not a full fledged agent yet, but he will be in August at the rate he's progressing.


- If you recall past entries, I had been late to work on Fridays almost all the time ever since I started working Fridays. Leaving the normal hour before work was causing me to be 15-30 minutes late. On the 24th, I finally remembered to leave 90 minutes early. Now I arrive to HER at most 15 minutes early and I still sit in some traffic. So I still sacrifice some free time to not be late. Better early than late.

And this was probably the worst things I've ever had to experience since working at HER. Sure, there are some bad groups that aren't that fun to facilitate, but this still was horrible. Long story short, after leading my last group out the door, I was pulled aside by one of the aunts of a group of girls that were going in next with some strangers. I was told that the adults were making fun of the girls and making racial comments. So I basically split the groups up and had the girls leave and come back to do the other room they weren't even scheduled for. I have never had to do that before. There are some groups that don't work well together, but they weren't in the room yet. I made sure all the staff know because we were basically working an extra session and they just needed to know what had happened. This is by far the worst thing I have had to encounter at HER.  

- We ended up closing early on the 25th. Agent Blue, Pow Poper, Gig, our Agent In Training, and myself were the only ones working. I asked around if they wanted to eat afterwards. Agent In Training already had plans and the rest of us decided to go eat at Smash Burger since some of them had not been there before.

We ended up talking about the names of the Fast and Furious movies (ala Game Grumps) before heading out to continue chilling at Bite Macaron (again, some had not been there before). More stupid stuff came out and we all had a great time just laughing and being dumb. The following Tweet was pretty much an accurate summary of our night, ha.


- Agent Ro came in on the 26th for a few days. His main focus was to help get the 3rd Room up and running for beta testing in August. Definitely need the help. We made a lot of plans.

Spent another Monday off doing work by going shopping with him to buy some stuff we needed (and a few extras). It was good to catch up as well and discuss more things about the business.

We did take a break during heavy traffic time to stop at Bite. Second time that my friend wasn't there, but we still had a good discussion with her fiancé. While we had planned to do another BiteHER collaboration in July, we were all busy. Hopefully it happens in August.

- Team RPG  was formed on the 28th. That is all, ha.


- Agent Ro had asked for all available staff to join for a meeting on the 29th. It was actually to just get all of us together to eat dinner and play games. He's hoping this will become a monthly thing just so we can relax and have fun especially since we had new staff members. I went with Agent M to pick up some Buffalo Wild Wings (not at the closest location thanks to my dumb self, ha).

After dinner, we played Spyfall. I had heard about it and the majority of us never played it. Basically everyone is given a card that tells you your role and the location you are at. One card is the spy who does not know where the location is and has to guess correctly before everyone else figures out that they are the spy. I was the spy for the first, third, and fifth game. The first two times I was the spy, I made premature guesses (confidently), but was incorrect. The last game, I knew where we were, but decided to ride it out and have everyone try to guess who the spy was. That was a great win for me and a great way to end the night. Everyone played really well and we had lots of fun.

- Coming off such a great day at work, the month ends with frustration. Things broke, couldn't fix them in a proper way, customers were not the greatest...yeah...

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- Girl's Day - Ring My Bell (MV)

- Girls' Generation - PARTY (MV)

- I had asked off from work for the 18th and 19th as the 19th would be one year after Grandma Gina had passed away. While there were no official plans of the family getting together, I just knew I didn't want to be at work during that day.

I texted my cousin asking if there were any family plans. That actually started the string of events of her asking family if they wanted to get together. It was decided that we would all have lunch at my cousin's father's home on the 19th.

It was great seeing the family that could make it out that day. We (some of us) were surprised to see the oldest daughter there as she is now living in Florida. We were all just sitting around talking and catching up with each other. At the end, a few of us went to the grave and then parted ways to go home. It was good to get together. Grandma Gina, we miss you and love you. 

- July...was rough. I did chalk a lot of the emotional and frustrating things to knowing that this was the month Grandma passed away last year. I just didn't expect a lot of the negative things to happen. I'm hoping August will be better. There definitely are a lot of things on the horizon. Those will be talked about if they happen in next month's entry.  

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

 
Take care. DFTBA.

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