May 2018 Entry
May was busy. Lots of things happened this month. Let's recap.
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- Death Battle (05.02)
- I don't remember when it started, but I had some major computer issues this month (05.06) First, my fan started being really loud upon start up. It would stay that way unless I hard restarted. Then I was not able to save or move files. And the overall performance was getting slower and slower. I looked up a bunch of solutions online (cmd prompts, virus/malware scans, etc) before asking Agent Gig for help. He suggested another computer scanner as well as another cmd prompt I had not seen. After doing that, everything started to work fine again (05.20). The fan issue still happens, but that's a minor thing that I can actually stop. I'm glad I can do simple things like copy/move files again. Things were piling up all over my desktop.
- Someone in the OverBlood Facebook group I am part of mentioned Bergers (05.06). After a quick research about what they were, I ordered them on Amazon. They unfortunately melted a bit during delivery, but they were still good. Not a must eat item, but I wouldn't turn it down.
- Batman Ninja was a fun movie to watch (05.08). It hit on quite a few anime tropes (some were unexpected). But they really pulled off that style and setting with that cast of characters really well. I recommend watching it.
- Bought a flow brush that came in early in the month (05.09). It's a brush and a hair straightener in one. My hair isn't the best for it (probably works better for those with more hair), but I like it. My one critique is that it's not cordless. But I got for 40% off and I think it is worth it at that price.
- Took another day to catch up on more superhero movies. I spent the day watching Wonder Woman and Justice League (05.16). I enjoyed both, but I see why others really like one and really don't like the other. And Gal Godot is gorgeous. I already knew that, but finally watching Wonder Woman added another layer to it.
- Went to an NXT Live event with friends (05.20). It was all their first times at an NXT house show and we sat front row and it was awesome.
Kassius Ohno & The Revival VS The Forgotten Sons
Fabian Aichner VS EC3
Reina Gonzalez & Taynara Conti VS Kairi Sane & Nikki Cross
Street Prophets VS The Undisputed Era
Kona Reeves VS Oney Lorcan (interuppted by Lars Sullivan)
Dakota Kai VS Shayna Baszler
Velveteen Dream VS Ricochet
Met up with my cousins during intermission. We got special guest appearances from Bruce Prichard and Booker T (both from Houston). Got some great interactions with the wrestlers. Forearm touched Kassius Ohno, touched EC3's oily shoulder, got high-fives from Angelo Dawkins and Dakota Kai, and got called "fake" and a stare down from Velveteen Dream (I was wearing his shirt and I did his pose, everyone around started pointing at me to get his attention for that to happen). The video below is a highlight video that you can see us in a few times. Shout outs to Jeremy Borash (who we spotted filming).
Afterwards, we walked in the rain to eat at Birraporettis. Nice fancy place, but we were drenched. Dried off and enjoyed a good meal before we all split and ended the night. Yay, wrestling.
- Got to catch up with a dear friend for the first time after her wedding (05.21). Went to Tacodeli and then Gelazzi after. Had not been to either places and they were both good. And as usual, it felt great catching up with her. So much had happened in the last couple months for both of us.
- I had been playing Toreba for a couple months now. If you're not familiar with Toreba, it's a set of crane games in Japan that you can control via webcam. There are different variations of the game from the standard crane, one-prong crane, ball drop, etc. And the set ups vary depending on the prizes which vary from shirts, toys, plushies, figures, and lots of miscellaneous prizes. I had not won anything from it, but came close many times. Spent quite a bit (limit myself to $25 a month if I do spend money). I usually just use the free ticket per day, but will occasionally spend money if I'm close to winning a prize. Came close many times too. It's tough. But there was a new crane that was set up. The prize hung by a piece of tape and the crane was replaced with with a thick nail/pin. Poke holes into the tape and make the prize drop. It took about 6-7 tries, but I go the prize to drop (05.21). It was a water gun in the shape of a Gundam gun. It arrived towards the end of the month (05.30). I know exactly who to give this too.
Finally won something from Toreba, yay. pic.twitter.com/akwGFGQkSL— Arnell (@ArnellragasA) May 21, 2018
- Friend got discounted tickets to Comicpalooza for some of the HER Agents and his sister (05.27). It was cool to be at that convention again. Lots of cool cosplayers, many interesting vendors. Not so many celebrities this time, which was disappointing, but the event was still fun. Didn't buy anything for myself, but I bought stuff for some of those I was with.
Afterwards, we went back to their place and played Jackbox Party 4 (Survive the Internet, Fibbage 3). And then I watched them play Overcooked. So many hilarious moments in both games, but I was in tears laughing as I watched them play Overcooked.
The main reason I didn't play was to set up a ride to go karaoke later that night. My main karaoke buddy and close friend was able to come get me and we arrived at Spotlight around 8:30PM. It was an interesting night. Good people and good songs. But this karaoke outing will be remembered for Asian girls singing "Me So Horny," black girls singing songs about their booty multiple times, and dudes saying lyrics they should never say in public or private...geez. Some cruddy stuff happened with some drunk creepy dudes and we had to make sure the ladies with us were going to be okay. Everything was fine, but still not cool to see stuff happen. Our group started leaving at various times while 3 of us stayed until about 1:30AM. Could have shut the place down, but we were starting to feel the tiredness setting in especially me. Got dropped off at home, ate a little bit, caught up with some stuff online, and went to bed.
- Family from New Mexico came to town. I wasn't able to see them on Sunday due to Comicpalooza, but they came and visited us at home (05.30). It was my first time meeting my cousin's daughter who is now 3 years old. Glad to see she's doing well. A few more cousins came over as well. When it was split to adults and the not adults, I asked if they wanted to play anything on the Switch since we weren't talking too much. We ended playing the rest of the time they were there. We played Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Death Squared (demo), Puyo Puyo Tetris (demo), Ultra Street Fighter II, and ended with Jackbox Party Pack 3 (Quiplash). That Switch definitely comes in handier than other game consoles in the past during family parties.
- Woke up early to go with my parents for my dad's routine colonoscopy (05.31). I took him the last time he had one many years ago. I took the day off work so that I could drive him home. This time it was deeper in the medical center at a different building. The process went by really fast. The procedure took only about 20 minutes when I think the last one took about an hour. The longest part of this trip was just waiting for him to wake up. And it didn't take long for him to be a little bit active at home. Glad it all went well.
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- Finished up my play through of Justice For All that I started last month (05.01). Great cases all around. Had a great time reliving them.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All on the Ace Attorney Trilogy finished. #AceAttorneyJusticeForAll #AceAttorneyTrilogy #Nintendo3DS pic.twitter.com/MU56xBEvqP— Arnell (@ArnellragasA) May 1, 2018
- Nintendo finally announced the details for Switch Online (05.07). The price point is cheaper than I expected. Looking forward to it coming out later this year.
- Bought Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition (05.08). To think that I just beat Friends To The End at the beginning of the year. I wasn't sure at first if I was just collecting this game or if I was going to play through all of them considering so many games were coming out this month. Once I started playing and beat the main game, I knew I could run through the rest. You can check my Twitter or Facebook feed and see that almost all my times were getting faster and faster and I knew I was going to able to knock all these games out within a short time frame. It took one week to do so (05.15). My last 3 play throughs were from the costume pack DLC that I didn't buy on the Wii U. All of them were pretty good and I enjoyed them more than I thought I would. Props to myself for beating each 8 versions of the game at 100%.
I broke the game. #Shantae #ShantaeHalfGenieHeroUltimateEdition #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/4thrdDLUtp— Arnell (@ArnellragasA) May 13, 2018
- Picked up Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (05.18). Unfortunately, I have yet to play it as of typing this. I knew if I were to not play any of the games that were coming out in May that this would be one of them. I was thinking to just beat the main game and not any of the challenge maps, but yeah...this one is sitting on the shelf until there is another gaming drought.
- Next up for May games were Mega Man Legacy Collection and Runner3 (05.22).
- Runner3...was disappointing (05.23). At first I wanted to complete the game (collect everything). But after a few levels, I couldn't get into the game like I did with Runner2. It's not that the game is bad, but I did have a few complaints such as the load times and the music not being as catchy. It just didn't hook me in. So I settled with only beating the game.
- Mega Man Legacy Collection was fun. I only completed part 1, which consists of Mega Man 1-6. Beat 1 and 2 in one day (05.26) and then 3-6 another day (05.28). Should have either played 2 a day or 3 a day as 4 in one day was a lot. Can't wait to play part 2 as it has been years since I played 7 (Wii U VC) and even longer playing 8 (only played once when it came out) and a while since I first played 9 and (Wii).
- Mega Man 11 became reservable and had an official release date of October 2nd (05.29). I only saw a tweet of it as I was coming from an early shift from work so I didn't know there were 2 Switch versions. Found that out at home afterwards. I called my GameStop to see if they can switch it over to the version with an amiibo or if I had to do it in person. But they know me as a regular so they did it over the phone. Very cool of them.
- Got Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection that same day (05.29). Much like Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, that is on the shelf. You might ask why I didn't play it with my cousins and opted for Ultra instead. For some reason, I wanted to play it alone first. And I don't even know what to do in "completing" or "finishing" all the games on the collection. I'm either going to play through all the games in order using only Ryu or play each game in order beating it with every character. The latter will absolutely take a longer time in general so...we'll see when that time comes.
- Finally got to play Ikaruga (05.30). I can see why a lot of people like it, but that hype must have set the bar too high. To me, it was another bullet hell shooter. A good one. A tough one. I tried it on Normal, but could only get to the end of the second level on default settings (0 continues, 3 lives). I was only able to beat the game on Easy with 9 continues and 5 lives per continue. Definitely took advantage of the invincibility frames from each death. I would like to try the two player mode some time though. That seems like it would be very challenging.
- And I end this heavy month of games with Just Shapes & Beats (05.31). Easy game play, crazy visuals, and amazing music. I would definitely like to try this with four players some day. Highly recommend it.
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- For about a month, myself and Agent Ocean (and X and Ingenue on occasion) were doing midnight shifts meaning we would have a 10PM session and leave and leave work at midnight. Those were rough especially as those sessions weren't always booked. But we stopped doing those after Agent X left as we didn't have enough facilitators (05.05). It was good to go home at an early time after doing it for about a month. Although we did have one more session later in the month that was already booked ahead of time and unfortunately I did that last session and they were not a fun group who were highly upset that they lost. I could go on more about them, but I'd rather not as they were one of the worst groups I've had in a long time. Anyways...
- Information about our new Memorial location was released to the public (05.07). Progress is continually being made so the opening may happen soon. Not at our predicted date of June 8th though, but definitely in the summer.
http://www.houstonescaperoom.com/memorial
- We celebrated our 4th Anniversary as a company (05.07). We had Freeb!rds for food and a cake with a puzzle on it for dessert (check the blog for a photo of it). For our activity, we are continuing a tradition that started last year where we test a new concept. Some of us were apprehensive at first, but once the game started, we had a blast.
- A change for our monthly meetings started this month (05.12). We will now be having them during business hours and the activity (if we still do them) will be on another day (such as an off day). It's an interesting change, but it might be for the best for now.
- Our activity was to go to The Escape Game (05.14). This was supposed to happen a couple months ago, but got cancelled due to them not being ready yet. Originally, we were also going to split into 2 groups and do 2 different rooms at the same time, but we had a smaller team actually arrive. So we did one room with 2 of us observing (Agents PQ and Solaire) as they already did that room. Took a break to eat and then came back for all of us to do together. The first one was okay. A lot of us had similar criticisms. But we all thoroughly enjoyed the second one. It's rare that I actually feel the way I did when I first went to an escape room and this was one of those few times. Some of us are planning to go again and try another one of their rooms that Agent Solaire says is one of his favorites. I have now done 25 escape rooms and escaped 20 of them. So my escape rate is 80%.
- Agent Incognito has left the company(05.17). Some of us knew he was looking elsewhere more than before, plus the company knew that he would eventually leave once he graduated. But all of us were happy for him as he would be moving on to something bigger and different for him. I also texted him shortly after he left because he left me some kind words during his Exit Survey. He was a great person to work with and I know he'll do well in his next endeavor.
- It has been a while since we had a surprise proposal happen (05.18). This one was all planned the day of. It was only the proposer and his girlfriend who had only been dating for 6 months. He was nervous about it, but that's why we talk to them and plan beforehand. It went off with no problems and she said "yes."
- And May's blog post was written by Agent Ingenue (05.31). She may be taking over blog posts from now on. Nothing official yet, but she does know that it may be the case.
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- AJ Lee on Mental Health (05.05)
“Mental health conditions can be scary & intimidating, but I choose to believe that they just mean that we're able to see the world in more beautiful more vibrant colors & getting treatment is a way to learn how to paint with those colors." - @TheAJMendez— Child Mind Institute (@ChildMindDotOrg) May 5, 2018
#MyYoungerSelf pic.twitter.com/dTew1QqZ18
- Alexa Bliss on Eating Disorders (05.25)
- AOA - Bingle Bangle (MV)
- At the end of my last blog entry, I made mention of a possible start of something. That something was me going on a date with someone I was talking to on Bumble (05.08). Our original meet up date was to be the 6th, but she was unfortunately called in to work. But we were able to reschedule for the following Tuesday. We met at Grand Lux (she chose from my suggestions). I was nervous on the way there. I arrived first and saw her walk by the window. It was great to finally meet her face to face.
Unfortunately, the date didn't go well in my opinion. We were able to have a good conversation, but there were points where she would space out and not talk or look at me. She even called me out on trying to keep the conversation going. Plus she was too into her phone. Kept checking stocks and chat messages. There was one point that she lost signal and immediately took out her sim card to jump it. She wouldn't let me talk to her during that time since she needed to get signal to check her stocks. She also sounded really busy to have a relationship or meet up in general (school and 3 jobs and wanted more jobs during the summer). And she didn't seem to want to get too personal. By that I mean, she didn't want to shake hands/hug and she didn't want to exchange phone numbers or Facebook (understandable if she was being cautious). I don't even think she said my name during the 3 hours we spent together. Originally it was going to be 4, but we had to cut it short due to something else coming up on her end. I left it open ended with her if she wanted to hang out again, but we haven't said anything to each other since then. Oh well.
- That's it for May 2018. Thanks for reading.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
