Tuesday, December 9, 2014

November 2014 Entry


Pardon the lateness. I've been pretty busy. It's the good type of busy though.

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- Happy Birthday, BoA. Forever your fan and always proud of you. (11.05.14)
http://instagram.com/p/u-FBfln1PH/

- I gave my 2 week notice for my office job at D2K back on the 27th of October. The last two weeks weren't anything special, but felt slow as I had less to do. The office did have lunch brought in from El Pollo Loco in honor of my leaving. No hard feelings from anyone. The only negative was that the owner never said anything to me. Doesn't matter anyways. My last day was on the 7th and I've moved on to better endeavors.



- One of my favorite groups in Kpop is Cheon Sang Ji Hee The Grace. My favorite member, Lina, got married on the 22nd. Congratulations to her and her new husband. You deserve the love you are receiving.



- I wasn't able to watch Survivor Series live as it happened on the 22nd since I was working. Actually, I was able to catch the first hour since I was on break. I had also been reading on Twitter what was going on and knew I had to watch it when I got back home. Overall, it was a solid PPV capped off with the debut of Sting in the WWE. That was an amazing moment. Sting stepping into a WWE ring for the first time will live on in wrestling history.


I also bought tickets to the next WWE Live Event happening in Houston on 01.18.15. I enjoyed the last house show I went to and am hoping this one will be just as good especially being the week before the Royal Rumble.

- In case I've never mentioned it before, I'm not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving. Been that way for years. With that said, I have noticed a tradition I unintentionally have started for Thanksgiving, playing Zelda games. I only realized it this year, but it has been going strong for 4 years now. And with the new Zelda Wii U game coming out next year, this tradition might carry on for a 5th year.

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

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- Bayonetta came packaged with Bayonetta 2. Never played it, but had always wanted to. It was a good game. A little on the difficult side with a few too many chances of instant death were the biggest negatives. Overall, I enjoyed it a whole lot. I beat it on the first of the month and then moved onto Bayonetta 2.


- Bayonetta 2 (Wii U) - Review
I really really liked Bayonetta 2. It got rid of the bad things in the first one and improved on the good stuff. My time with it was short (beat on the 9th), but very enjoyable. It's one game I highly recommend is easily in the run for my game of  the year for 2014. I would welcome a third Bayonetta game so it can be a trilogy.


- Even though I got a good deal on the physical cartridge for Gargoyle's Quest II: The Demon Darkness, I didn't play it. When it became available on the Virtual Console, I knew I was going to finally play and beat it and I did that on the 10th. It was good. Pretty much the first game that was on the GameBoy, but on the NES.


- The first batch of Mario Kart 8 DLC came out on the 14th. The new tracks were so fun to play. It felt good playing that game again after a few months of absence.

One unfortunate thing I experienced was the 104-1852 error. It basically prevented me from uploading video replays. I actually called Nintendo (after checking online) and they had never heard of that error code before. And I wasn't the only one experiencing it. Fortunately it got fixed after a couple of weeks and video uploads work again.



- Demon's Crest was also released on the Wii U's VC. After beating Gargoyle's Quest II, this was next on my list (not according to a back log list I made last month). I actually never got the true ending for the game before so that was my goal. It took a while because that final boss was brutal. I had to take a break since I had a case of the yips. But I did it and got the true ending to the game (11.17.14). It's one of my favorite SNES games and comes with a high recommendation from me.


- Can't recall why I was looking at import games on eBay, but I was. I ended up finding a good seller that sold everything (game, box, instructions). So I now have the Japanese imports of two of my favorite RPGs; Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI. Those were a pleasant reward to come home to after a long work day (19th).


- The 21st was time to Smash. Super Smash Bros for Wii U had finally been released. I actually ordered mine off GameStop's site since the bundle wasn't available for preorder. So I had to wait for it to arrive. But I went to my local GameStop to pick up the 3 amiibos I preorded; Peach, Link, and Samus. Those are cool. I'll definitely collect a few more amiibos down the line.

As for Smash itself, it is the definitive Smash game. Great from top to bottom. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to play it or any game really. That's also the reason why I haven't written a proper review for it yet (and haven't written this blog entry until the 8th of December). Regardless, Smash Bros for the Wii U is awesome and so are amiibo figures.



-  More Hyrule Warriors DLC came out on the 27th. It's always good coming back to this game. A funny thing did happen as I was trying to play it like Bayonetta instead of Hyrule Warriors, ha. It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things and just have a good time playing it.


- And in 2015, I will finally scratch off the missing link in my favorite game series. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was announced to come out for the 3DS. I know I'll be busy, but I will definitely make time to finally play Majora's Mask.


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- The reason being so busy lately is working full time at the Houston Escape Room. It has been really good so far. If you've read past entries, you know how excited I am to be working there and am looking forward to all the good things coming from it in the future.

On the 8th, the owner had us meet up at Dave & Busters to eat, talk shop, and play some games together. We played so much from 4-player air hockey, Daytona USA, Guitar Hero, Pump It Up, as well as a few ticket games. We did spend a lot of time playing the on-rails shooter 4D game. It's still a tough game (played it previously a year ago), but the crew really got into it. I also ended up winning 3 stuffed toys in a last ditch splurge with the last of my credits towards the end of our stay there. It was a really fun time.


Our first beta group happened on the 11th. The owner was freaking out a little, ha. It went well. They were not successful, but we allowed them to have overtime to complete it (25 minutes over the hour). Afterwards, the owner along with Agent Z and I went to eat at Fu Fu to celebrate her birthday. We actually sat at a table with another group we didn't know. We casually joked back and forth with them before letting them know about the Houston Escape Room. They seemed interested, but we haven't seen them come through yet. Oh well. Good first day though.


More beta testing happened throughout November as well as our first official week of being open. We had gotten back into our groove and things have been going well. There were a few glitches and mishaps we had to fix up (toning the difficulty down, glass and a lava lamp breaking). But all the groups have been enjoying themselves and the crew has been a great unit. We'll actually be expanding our family as we're bringing on a couple more part timers. Us senior facilitators have been sitting in and taking part in interviews. And with other helping hands, construction on the second and third rooms have been ongoing. The second room should be up before the end of the year.

This is where a lot of my time is now allocated. I've only seen the faces of my coworkers on a daily basis. I've rarely seen any friends since taking on this job full time. It's an odd thing. I used to be available to see anyone (if they were free), but now I'm almost never free (although others seem more busy than ever). I know I'll make time for them when possible. Although it would be cool to see some of them come through the Escape Room. Whenever I've told others about it, there was always interest. Some have even contacted me about it so I'm hoping to see those few come through before the year is over. So if you're reading this and haven't come through the Houston Escape Room, do it. It's a fun time and I'll be super happy to see you come by.

And since my time is mostly at the Escape Room, I have scaled down on other things like games. It's one reason I haven't played Smash on the Wii U that much or have written a review for it. And I haven't posted or shared as much on my WingedVoX accounts although I addressed I'd be scaling those back earlier. A scaled down version of reviews (just bullet points) might be coming soon and that's probably going to happen for Smash (if I ever get around to it). Wrestling took a hit as I have to catch replays now of stuff I normally watched live. Although I have expressed I'd at least be needing one Sunday off or to switch schedules with at least see PPVs live.

Other than that, I'm very thankful for the Houston Escape Room. The crew is great, I've met some cool people, I get to meet a ton of strangers, I get to be myself, and I feel that I can greatly contribute to the company. We all took this quiz to show that show how others view us and give us our strengths. Everyone's was pretty much spot on including myself. We even got cool nicknames and I'm the Secret Weapon. I know that this company will benefit and utilize me properly as well as everyone else. It can only get better and it definitely will and I'm glad to be a part of it.

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- And that should be it. This entry was delayed so I took out/forgot some of the little details that happened in November. But you see why and where my focus is.


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


Take care. DFTBA.

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