Wednesday, February 8, 2017

January 2017 Entry


January 2017 Entry 

The new year has begun and we're one month in. 

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- I don't recall when I started doing this, but I'm buying snacks once a month. This time I ordered honey roasted peanuts and ttekbokki chips (01.05). Something old and something new. To this date (02.07.17), I have only finished one of the peanut containers. The tteokbokki chips were good, but more sweet than spicy. 


- My copy of Jessica's Wonderland came in (01.09). It's alright. I prefer her first single more. 
 

- Went into work in the morning for a long meeting. Due to that, I was able to arrange meeting up with a dear friend afterwards (01.10). We went to Kitchen 713 for dinner. Neither of us had been there and it was great. Large food portions and all that we had was delicious. Then we went to Honey Art Cafe for dessert. That place is amazing. Not only is their food good, but their whole business caught my attention. There's art everywhere that they made, stuff on tables for customers to make art, and there was even an art class being held in the back of the complex. Highly recommend both places for anyone. 
 

- Bought tickets for NXT Live in Houston (01.26). Since I knew I couldn't go to TakeOver a few days after in San Antonio, I could not miss this show. My original friend I invited cancelled a few days before, but I another close friend was able to take his place. 

Elias Samson VS No Way Jose 
Sanity VS Cedric Alexander and Heavy Machinery 
Roderick Strong VS Wesley Blake 
The Revival VS DIY 
Nikki Cross VS Billie Kay VS Peyton Royce VS Asuka 
Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode VS Tye Dillinger, Shinsuke Nakamura 

All the matches were fun to watch and full of chants. Highlights for me were Asuka looking directly at me (had my NXT title with all her masks on it), chanting Joe and 10, and singing to Roode and Nakamura's themes. 

I did watch TakeOver the day after it aired. Fantastic show as expected. Wish I could have been there, but it was very enjoyable. 
 

- I had bought my tickets for Royal Rumble in San Antonio as soon as I could (01.30). The Royal Rumble was one match I've always wanted to see in person so I could not miss on it being only hours away from Houston. Originally was going to go with cousins I used to watch wrestling with as we grew up. One of them had to back out a few days before the event so I got the same friend that went to NXT Live with me to enjoy the other ticket (he was already in San Antonio for PAX South). 

On the way to San Antonio and back, my cousin and I were catching up. Talked a lot about wrestling and video games. It was good catching up with him. 

We arrived in San Antonio around 4PM and already saw traffic heading to the Alamo Dome. While we had planned to possibly eat beforehand, we ended up walking to the venue after finding parking. Texted my friend to meet us there and we waited. Got a lot of people complimenting me on my Rated R belt. Once my friend joined us, it was into the stadium we went. We had already missed one of the preshow matches and came in for the end of the second preshow match. At least we made it in time to see the final preshow match with Sasha Banks. I never got to see her perform live until that night. And then seeing Shawn Michaels was cool. 

A couple things did suck during the event. One horrible thing to note is that the staff at the Alamo Dome was bad. They numbered the chairs incorrectly. So some of the staff were telling us it was okay to just sit in our row, but not our seat. We had good seats until we were forced to move. That staff member then ignored us and didn't even help us to our actual seats. You could see fans still being moved around well into the Owens/Reigns match. 

The other thing was that later during Styles/Cena, a fan refused to sit down even though a bunch of us asked/yelled at him to. He wouldn't even listen to the staff and police had to be brought in to at least talk to him. It really was all about common courtesy and etiquette. We all paid to be there, no one is more entitled than anyone else. You sit down so those behind you can see. Stand up for the good stuff, but also know when to sit back down and not be in anyone's way. 

Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella, Naomi VS Alexa Bliss, Natalya, Mickie James 
The Club VS Cesaro, Sheamus 
Sasha Banks VS Nia Jax 

Bayley VS Charlotte 
The match was as good as I thought it would be. Definitely not the end for these 2. 

Kevin Owens VS Roman Reigns 
Intense match. Lots of hard hits from both men. 

Neville VS Rich Swann 
Fun to watch, but not super exciting. Neville is fantastic. 

AJ Styles VS John Cena 
Emotionally charged. Definitely match of the night. Very surprised that Cena won the title to tie Ric Flair's record, but he deserves it.  

Royal Rumble Match 
They weren't kidding when they say that's the fastest hour because time flew. After someone joined the Rumble, it wasn't long before we all stood up to countdown from 10 again. From where we were sitting, we couldn't see the golf cart driving some of the competitors down to the ring. We would just see them zoom really fast and it was funny, ha. 

Some highlights include chanting 10 for Tye Dillinger, Baron Corbin eliminating Braun Strowman, Brock Lesnar destroying people, Goldberg swiftly getting rid of Lesnar, Undertaker appearing in the ring, and Roman Reigns being number 30. The reaction he got was incredible to be a part of. When he eliminated the Undertaker, I stood up on my chair and flicked him off, ha. Orton winning was surprising and it did make everyone happy. 

To cap off the night, we were 3-5 rows away from the special Royal Rumble seats that fans could take home. An enthusiastic fan in front of us managed to get 2 of them. She was having trouble getting them over her row so I offered to help. She gave me a look, but I really was going to help. She ended up giving me one of them. I was trying to give it back, but she insisted. Now that I had a chair, I had to get it checked. Got in line with others (not handled well by the staff). While waiting, I looked around and noticed well-known child superfan Izzy. I yelled out "Izzy" and got her and her parents' attention and waved at them. I think I asked if she enjoyed the show. Then I asked "do you want a chair?" The dad laughed and asked how much. I shook my head and held it up to them to take. They were in shock because the dad was actually going to ask around and buy someone's chair if he could. I stated that they were pretty much doing what I would do if I had a kid. The dad asked if there was anything they could do for me so I asked for a picture. We walked over to each other, I shook the parents' hands, and got a hug from Izzy. I noticed Izzy had the RAW Women's title so I told her I had the Smackdown one at home. Got my friend to take a picture of us. Then I told Izzy to stick with wrestling because she's going to have a lot of fun watching it. I gave my ticket to the dad since staff was checking to make sure certain priced ticket holders were walking out with the chairs. The family thanked me again. And that was how I will "Remember the Rumble." 
 


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- Been going through my backlog of games. This has been a pretty active month of gaming. 

Shantae:Half-Genie Hero (01.01) 
Definitely enjoy this series. Half-Genie Hero was very polished. I did think there could have been more, but what was there was more than enough. Just like with the other Shantae games (except the first one), I did a 100% run. Can't wait for the DLC to come out. 


3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (01.16) 
It was fun playing my favorite 2D Sonic game after so long. I did use the save states for when I was doing the bonus stages for Chaos Emeralds. Everything else was muscle memory after a while. 
 

BoxBoy! (01.23) 
With a discount via My Nintendo and an impending amiibo coming soon, I decided to give the first BoxBoy game a try. Simple puzzle game to understand, but I definitely needed help solving puzzles towards the latter part of the adventure. I enjoyed and look to pick up the second game and the one after that is coming with the amiibo. 


- The Nintendo Switch presentation happened (01.12). It did what I knew it would do and get me excited even more so for the system. The day after the presentation, I made sure to go to my local GameStop to reserve one. I think I was 12th or 13th in line and they only had 26. Along with the system, I reserved Zelda BotW, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Mario Odyssey. Soon thereafter, I also preordered an extra set of Joy-Cons, a screen protector, Sonic Mania, and a Pro Controller. There are more games I plan to get (Ultra Street Fighter II, JackboxTV 3, etc), but I'm waiting for release dates.   
 

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- Throughout the month, I conducted evaluations for staff members along with Agent Majordomo. It was good to connect with the staff to let them know of what they are great at and what they can improve on. 

- Another month, another meeting (01.03). Or after meeting activity was playing JackBoxTV games. So much fun. 
 

- Our fourth escape room, Dark Side of the Moon officially launched (01.11). Got an awesome trailer to help promote it. 
 

- We're collaborating with GoGames360 for an event in February. Lots of work have been put in leading up to the event, but it will be worth it. You'll read more about that next month after the event happens. 
 

- We now offer Special Events, which is a way to enhance the experience. Have a birthday coming up? You can get a shirt and a game to go along with your session. This was also a good way to put other special sessions we've done in the past (pregnancy reveal, surprise wedding proposals, etc) into a category that we offer. People are liking it so it's a success. 
 

- I fell off a large set piece that is in one of our escape rooms (01.20). I have climbed up and and down it many times over a year plus, but this one time I happened to get caught as I came down. I felt things crack in my right ankle and and hit the floor hard (also damaged a prop). Took me a while to get up and other staff members were getting ice for me, but I didn't need it. I was worried I did break something, but it was definitely just strained (even though I felt things crack). And then I only found out a couple days later that I had a bruise on my left hip from when I hit the floor. I was fine a few days later and have climbed that set piece many times since then.   

- One of our biggest deals for customers is happening right now. For the month of February, pairs of tickets bought for Tuesday-Thursday sessions are BOGOF. Tell everyone you know because we don't offer many deals like this all the time. 
 

- Agent Voxel is our latest artist for our chalk art wall (01.28). He did a terrific job. It was great to see him be excited about the project and tackle it. 
 

- And our monthly blog was written (with haikus) by Agent Pow-Poper.  

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- SeoHyun - Don't Say No (MV) 

It is great to see how SeoHyun has evolved. Unfortunately, I have decided to pass on buying her album. I know I would have bought one for HyoYeon had she released one.  

- Red Velvet - Rookie (MV) 

Honestly not my favorite song that they've done. I do enjoy their performances, but the song itself isn't one of their best. 

- SES - Paradise (MV) 
 


It still amazes me to see new SES content. Not only that, but to be buying a new album from them, wow. The album is fantastic. Definitely one of their best. 

- A recent tweet from GameAttack resonated with me (01.16). I did share it with coworkers and it did hit them as well.  


- Reading the news of BoA dating...I'll admit that I was crushed (01.17). However, it doesn't surprise me that she is (or ever has) because she is a catch. She does deserve that type of happiness in her life. I've supported her throughout her career and I can definitely suport her in her personal life. Congratulations, BoA.   

- And that's the end of this month's entry. January went by quickly. I'm actually surprised so much happened this month. As usual, thanks for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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