Monday, May 8, 2017

April 2017 Entry

April 2017 Entry 

Seems like a lot happened in the month of April. Before recapping things and making bullet points, I thought that not much didn't happen. 

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- Caught up on NXT TakeOver: Orlando (04.02). Great wrestling all around. My predictions were almost all wrong, ha.  

Made sure to finish all of it before Wrestlemania 33 started. Unfortunately, I missed the first 2 hours of the show due to the internet going out literally minutes before the show started. I did stay up to watch what I missed. The show of shows was definitely fun to watch. The Hardy Boyz returning was wonderful. The Undertaker's last match was not his greatest, but it was a sight to see him go out the way that he did. Thank you, Undertaker.   

 

- New snack of the month were Jaffa Cakes (04.06). Searched for them after watching Teens React to different types of snacks. Jaffa Cakes were interesting. The combination of orange and chocolate would not be one I normally be into. It took 2 of the cakes to convince me that I liked them. 
 

- The latest Death Battle was Power Rangers VS Voltron (04.12). I brought it up to a few friends and I was on the losing end of the battle. I don't recall my record for Death Battle predictions, but I know I've been wrong more than half the time. As long as the fights are interesting, I'm fine. 
 

- I had an anxiety attack (04.14). It had been a long time since I had one. I woke up around 3AM feeling it, which was also different from any other time. I tried all my normal methods of calming down and going back to sleep. After about an hour, I asked my mom for help. Can't really pinpoint how this one happened either.  

- Spent Easter at my cousin on my dad's side (04.16). I don't recall the last time I spent Easter with the family. It was fun. Lots of food, games, and laughs. It was cool seeing how they have celebrated Easter for years (confetti eggs and Easter egg hunt). I was very delighted that the 1-2-Switch was a big hit among the majority of the party-goers. Quick Draw was the most popular, but we did play a fair amount of the games available. Once more of the kids left, the remainder of cousins played Quiplash 3. Hilarious horrible fun. 

As I was leaving, I did take the time to thank my cousin for always inviting me to these parties. Basically, I had felt a little disconnected from the family for a while and her always texting me whenever something was going on helped quell those feelings. Talked a few more family related things, but I do appreciate her and her husband being excellent hosts.  
 

- Got my tax return (04.17). My family went to someone new this year. A few days prior, my parents were "in line" for almost a whole day (coming home around 4-5AM). And then we had to meet the guy at a gas station instead of an office...it was all weird. To cap it off, my tax return was $60...minus $50 for his service...so I got $10 this year. Yeah...lame. For some reason, I felt better last year when I owed about a grand. 

Met up with my cousin and her husband and son that same day for dinner before they headed back to Corpus Christi. It was interesting to be around only them as there is usually a party or celebration involved. I spent a good amount of time walking along with their son to keep him entertained so that the parents could have some time to relax and eat. 

- Teen Titans: The Judas Contract is a great movie (04.18). It is the second DC animated movie to make me tear up. Every bit of it was good and I highly recommend it. 
 

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- Spent a lot of March playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 120 Shrines beat (04.03), all sidequests completed (04.07), and then finally beating the game (04.09). A phenomenal adventure from start to finish. I haven't thought about where exactly it sits in my list of favorite Zelda games, but it is safe to say it is in the top 5. I haven't touched the game after beating it (over 120 hours worth of game play), but I can't wait to return to it when the DLC comes out. 
 
 

- Before beating BotW, I went to the Zelda themed escape room; Defenders of the Triforce (04.09). It was myself, Agent Blue, and Agent Gig and his girlfriend. We were joined by 2 others to form a team of 6. They had never done an escape room before, but they were big Zelda fans. There were a lot of people there. I think there were close to 30 teams of 6 (180+ people). When everything started, we were actually the front-runners for about half an hour. Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete the quest. One roadblock really got us. My escape room record is now 16 escapes out of 21 rooms.  

Overall, I did not enjoy it. I liked some of the production that was in place, but I definitely had more negatives about the experience. The biggest thing was that there were so many people. We're all doing the same thing so that meant waiting in line for others to finish whether they were right or wrong in their answers. It really was a main factor in the end as the majority were in line for the final area. Not only that, but the worker was quickly shooing people away if they were wrong. It also did not help that not all our final puzzle pieces worked/revealed themselves. For the puzzles being paper puzzles, they were fine. But this would have been way better if it were one room and without others involved other than your team. 

The cost definitely was not worth it. As a big fan of Zelda and escape rooms, I was disappointed. 


- A new Nintendo Direct (04.12). My biggest takeaways were all the amiibo announced. I also purchased Bye Bye BoxBoy since it was released. 
 

- Speaking of amiibo, I gained 3 more (04.17). There was a 3 for $20 deal at Toys R Us so I ordered a few I did not have yet; Villager, Palutena, and Captain Falcon. 
 

- I downloaded Graceful Explosion Machine when it became available. I started it on the 10th (told myself I wouldn't start it until I beat Breath of the Wild). I didn't get into this one hardcore as I was trying to catch up on other things. But I did beat it on the 23rd. I did enjoy it. There was one level (3-2) that was giving me a lot of trouble as the difficulty spiked. Definitely a sense of challenge. I would recommend trying it out. 
 

- And on the same day I beat GEM, I started and beat Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (04.23). One of the main reasons I beat it quickly was because Game Grumps were doing a playthrough and I did not want anything spoiled yet. I downloaded this the day it came out, but didn't touch it until BotW was beat. Specter of Torment was fantastic. After my playthrough, I had 93% of the game complete. Between this, Plague of Shadows, and the original Shovel Knight, I don't know which one I like better. They all play differently and were all great. Highly recommend any and all of them to anyone. 
 

- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is out (04.28). While I was hesitant jumping back in to a game I had already played a lot on the Wii U, I found myself coming back to this game a lot ever since it came out. I did not play it every spare hour I had like I did with Breath of the Wild, but I have been coming back to it when I did have free time. I started with 50cc with the goal to 3 star all the cups before moving up. As of typing this (05.08), I am 3 stars on 4 cups in 200cc. 200cc is crazy. Definitely have to play differently. So much fun though. 
  

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- Another month, another monthly meeting (04.04). This was the final meeting for Agent Pow-Poper whose actual final day was the previous Saturday. 
 

- We hired a new Agent In Training (04.07). She actually came as a customer first and she and I talked before her session about how we were hiring. So while she was going through Mo's Safehouse, I was actually observing her as if this was part of the interview process. A few days later, she actually came in for an interview. Shortly after, she started. It had been a while since I trained anyone so the shift in my work load and sessions load has increased.  

- We've done our share of special request events such as a pregnancy reveal and wedding proposals. But we had our first gender reveal (04.15). The main request made was that if the team did not escape, we would not reveal the gender, ha. I don't think we would have let it go down that way. The family was all dressed in blue or pink based on what they thought the gender would be. In the end, they escaped and Agent Coda and I were on hand as they found out that it was a boy. That was an amazing moment to be part of. 
 

- We weren't through with Agents In Training. A second one was brought on board (04.28). He was actually one of the coordinators for GoGames360, the gaming event we participated in earlier in the year. Things didn't turn out well with them so he was seeking employment elsewhere.  

- This month's blog post was created by Agent Solaire. 


- I know that more happened, but the main thing that took a lot of my focus were all the interviews we conducted. This has to be the most we have ever done in a short span of time. The most in a day; 3. The most in a week; 5. I actually started to lose my voice at one point from doing so many. Unfortunately, a lot of them were not that great. There was one time I cut the interview short and I had never done that before. I've always been picky, but Ihave been more so lately. Hopefully we'll bring on 1-2 more sooner rather than later. 

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- TaeYeon - Make Me Love You (MV) 

Her album has been pretty decent. 

- BoA - Spring Rain (MV) 


Continues to amaze me. 

- And that is it for April. I feel like I actually forgot a lot of the month as I was recapping things even though a lot happened. Oh well. Thank you for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 
 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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