Sunday, November 8, 2015

October 2015 Entry




October was definitely a long month.

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- NXT Takeover: Respect (10.07) was amazing. The entire card was full of great talent and action. But the match of the night (possibly of the year) was Sasha Banks VS Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship in an Ironman Match. Everything about that match was spectacular. One of the highlights was Sasha Banks' interaction with Bayley's number 1 fan, Izzy. My goodness, that moment epitomized Sasha Banks' character and will be replayed many times. The congratulations the 2 women received from the locker room and from the audience...very much deserved. I cried tears of joy at the end of the match and afterwards. Very proud of those 2. I've rewatched their match multiple times and it still gives me chills.  


- Bought the Sting: Into The Light blu-ray (10.13). Took me a little over a week to finish watching all of it. Great documentary of Sting and him coming to the WWE. Very much recommended to all Sting fans.


- During an unexpected day off from work, I ended up watching Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F (10.24). I was always told it was one of the better DBZ movies and I agree. Fun action and good fights. Highly recommend it for any DBZ fan.  

- Hell In A Cell was a good PPV (10.25). All of the matches were entertaining. Highlights for me was the surprise return of Alberto Del Rio (and he won, yay), the Divas match (Nikki and Charlotte put on a heck of a brutal match), and Lesnar VS Undertaker (nice end to their feud and nice lead in for Survivor Series with The Wyatt Family).  

- I finally got to meet my cousin's son for his first birthday (10.31). I don't even remember when they last visited, but I wasn't able to attend. It was supposed to be a costume party, but only myself and 2 other cousins dressed up. I used my Discount Demon outfit again (mentioned later in this post). When I came in, I was greeted by one of my other cousins in her wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man costume she made. It was hilarious. I told her later that obviously she would be the one that would do that, ha.

It was good to see my cousin, her husband, and her son (he's a cute fellow). We played some kid games (pin the eye on the Monsters Inc character, the party decorations theme was Monsters Inc), ate food, played games (I played Mortal Kombat X for the first time), had cake, pet some dogs, caught up with others, talked about HER, opened gifts, found out one of my other younger cousins was dating someone, and it ended with most of the party guests leaving and only the cousins/sisters staying to watch/nap the movie Home. And the most important thing was that we all laughed a lot at/with each other.

This was a much needed day off. Didn't worry (too much) about work and just enjoyed being with family and having a good time with good people.

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- Thanks to a recent sale on ThinkGeek, I impulse bought the Mega Man Mega Buster (10.02). It is cool. I was very impressed with build of it and the accurate sound effects it plays as you use it. Glad to have it. Perhaps I'll get a helmet one of these days.
  

- I beat Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (10.05). As I mentioned last month, it was very fun playing. Definitely delivered a different challenge from the original Shovel Knight. Great free content from Yacht Club Games.


- Super Mario Maker (Wii U) - Review 

It's a super fun game that I was playing daily. But I did hit a ceiling with it once I capped the awards for beating the normal courses in the 100 Mario Challenge. I attempted to do a set of expert courses and it was taking a long time, I died a lot, and I skipped tons of courses I could not beat. I ended up not finishing one full series of expert courses. Since then, I have only come back to check out the stats of my courses after a week.

I will definitely come back to create a new course once the new set of free DLC additions comes out on the 4th of November.

- I only bought 2 new amiibo this month (10.09, 10.18); Chibi-Robo and Light Blue Yarn Yoshi. I might add the Green and Pink and Mega Yarn Yoshi amiibo to my collection soon. We shall see.



- Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash (3DS) - Review

While I really only bought the game for the amiibo (which will be sold separately soon), the game was not that bad. My biggest beef was the ending portion, which I mentioned in my review. Other than that, I enjoyed my time playing it (around 16 hours). Never cared about the other Chibi-Robo games, but I might be in for a sequel to Zip Lash.


- Bought The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (10.24). The demo was fun so I was amped for playing the full version of the game. I ended up finishing the game on November 1st. The review is already out, but I'll post it and talk a little more about it in next month's entry.


- I also downloaded Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (10.24). I was excited to get back into the Fatal Frame series, which is my favorite survival horror series. While I wanted to always play it at night to have the proper mood, I'm having to play to play during the day while I have time for it. So far, so good. 


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- One of the big things that happened this month at the Houston Escape Room is that we started to have beta testing for our new room; Episode 3: The Scarlet Scam. One thing we were worried about was if the room was too difficult for first timers. So we put a few things in place. We made sure to put on our website that these were beta tests. Another thing was that we made customers answer a question as the sign up and that was if they had been to an escape room before.

Unfortunately our first team (10.09) was full of first timers. 1 had been to our original location and invited 2 friends. Another couple had been to another escape room and invited a friend. And the last 3 were 12 year old girls that have never been to one before, but heard about escape rooms from their teacher. And...it was bad. A few of the first timers broke things, a lot of things got bypassed or opened up when they weren't supposed to be opened, and overall there was just a bad vibe.

With each beta test, we also tell the group we will talk to them afterwards to ask questions and get feedback. The 3 girls couldn't stay since their parents wanted to them to leave. They at least told me they had fun. The rest...gave a lot of negative feedback (like 75% negative). One guy in particular was just a douchebag from the start. It didn't even look like he wanted to be there and that he was just a third wheel to his friends. Other staff members agreed on that. He just did not get into the game and questioned many things like "why would someone have a security system that does ___? It doesn't make sense." While it was an overall bad first public beta test, it was good that we saw them do things we did not consider or think of. But it did force us to cancel the next day's testing since things broke and needed to be repaired at least in time for the testing the day after. I called the owner afterwards to let him know how it went and yeah...I was not happy with it. 

- We did get things fixed and repaired for the next group of beta testers (10.11). I mentioned going to League City with Agent M to speak in front of a class of kids about escape rooms. This group was the teacher and her friends that really liked when they did their first escape room with us.

This was definitely better than the previous test. They also gave a lot of great feedback. They actually were very talkative and we (and even their own members) had to pull on their reigns to make sure they weren't going off topic. But they all really liked it and it definitely made me and the staff feel better after the disastrous test a few days prior. 

- We unfortunately had a power outage (10.13). We had minimal power so only a few rooms had lights (none of the escape rooms though). Those of us there spent time setting up some of the Halloween decorations and calling customers to let them know we were cancelling. A few hours later, we went to Tout Suite to send out emails to customers and send out refunds. I think we wrapped up around 7PM and just went home for the day. The power was restored the next day.

- Agent M was sick so I had to fill in for him for a few days (10.14). Those were long days since I essentially had to be there from opening to close to cover for him. At least they were productive days, but I was getting tired. Thankfully he was back to work after a couple days of absence. 

- We were contacted by a local media crew, Channel 8, to do a feature story on HER (10.17). The emails went back and forth for a while and weren't the smoothest. But the staff was ready (all with their company shirts on) and I was to be the liaison for the camera crew when they arrive.  

They were actually late by about half an hour. But after that, things went rather well. The film crew (college students) were alright. I wasn't that high on the director as he was treating his crew kind of rough. I did let them know I had previous filming experience so they were actually open to me giving suggestions and directing them and (of course) to tell them what they cannot film. The family that was going to be filmed were contacted ahead of time and they were actually jazzed to be filmed (some more than others). 

After the session, they also interviewed some of the family members and some of the staff. Everything went well. We're still waiting on the final video product (even as of typing this 11.08). Hopefully it turns out well. They did say they would let us see a preview in case we want them to change things. I hope they stick with that.

- I received download codes for The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes demo and I offered the extra 2 to Agent Blue and Agent Gig. We had been talking for a while about figuring out a day to get together to try it out since you have to have 3 people to try the demo. And while I was randomly checking who would be working (10.17) and saw that all 3 of us were closing.

We made sure to do all our closing duties before trying the demo. It turned out to be a short demo (level 1-2) and we did pretty well as a team. It was fun, but again, short. So we decided to try it again, but without talking out loud and using the communication icons the game has. That turned out to be hilarious. Even though we already knew what to do, it definitely was a different experience. There was one part where we needed to totem and Agent Gig and I ended up running in circles chasing each other trying to start the totem, ha. Good fun.


- And the beta tests kept happening (10.18). We had a few happen, but the one on this day was spectacular. They comprised of some of my friends, Agent Yeti's boyfriend and some of her friends (some first timers), and Agent Audrey. It was great seeing Agent Audrey again after so many months. And it was funny seeing her and her brother, Agent Incognito, interact with each other.

The test went over well. They provided some really good feedback and all had a great time. After this and a few other random tests we had (corporate), I started to feel better that Scarlet's room is actually suitable for first timers. 


Although during a random beta test that happened, a vital thing broke and we've had to pump the brakes on any testing until it is fixed.

- Agents ECx2 arrived for their monthly visit. It's always great when they're around. Other than them being around, we had our monthly meeting (10.22). I actually chose this month's activity and had the Agents play Spin The Bottle: Bumpie's Party. I moderated and helped explain the games as everyone else participated in the hilarity. I'm glad everyone had a fun time.

Afterwards, the Agents were busy setting up the rest of the Halloween decorations. At one point, Agent Blue tried out some of my Super Mario Maker courses. I understand how it truly feels to see people play your levels. Fun night.  

- Now I can't speak in detail about what happened on the 23rd, but it was in direct response to what happened on the 22nd. It was a very unfortunate series of events and definitely stands as the biggest thing we've had to deal with at HER.

As we were closing up that night, a lot of us were dumbfounded and out of it. I ended up going to eat with Agents ECx2 to decompress. It was good though. We knew we weren't going to let this keep us down. Funny enough, 2-3 of us got very appropriate fortune cookies that night (mine is the one on the left).


We also had to close down that same weekend due to the impending hurricane. It was a few rough days, but we were able to get things back on track. We also are on the road to making improvements that needed to happen sooner rather than later. 

- A few days later (10.28), I had a meeting with Agents ECx2. It was essentially for them to thank and congratulate me for my one year of service to the company. It was very heartwarming to listen to their appreciation. I was feeling very proud. As I've told them, this is the best job I've ever had. I thank them for being a part of a great team.

We had a follow up meeting a few days later with the Senior Facilitators to talk about the future of the company and the direction we may be heading. It's an exciting time. 

- Halloween! Agent Yeti was in charge of setting up decorations and theming our rooms to have a Halloween vibe to them. It really did get me excited for Halloween more than in the past few years. It was definitely cool to see everything come together.


 


And during the week of Halloween, I decided to dress up for each day of work. All were characters with my own spin on them. I was Business Casual Goku, Modern Day Jump 'N Shoot Man, Fancy Sub-Zero, and Discount Demon.


I actually attempted to do face paint for Discount Demon. I applied black paint all over my face and was getting ready to use some red to outline my face. It was at that time that the paint started to harden and it felt uncomfortable. I kept going for a while, but I started to feel claustrophobic. So I ended up washing it all off. Next time, I'll have to get help with any type of paint job on my body. Some day.

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- Ailee - Insane (MV)

Sucks that Ailee got injured before her performances. At least she still performed. I think it was for the better as she got to focus on the vocals.

- TaeYeon - I (MV)

It's been a long time coming, but TaeYeon finally has her solo album. And of course, it's really good. It was also cool that she got her own little concert, but I would have liked to have seen her do more stage performances of I.

- Stephanie - Up and Up (MV)

Cool to see Stephanie performing again. I kind of like her previous song better than Up and Up though. But I do like that she made an appearance on Running Man. It has been a long time since she had done any variety shows.

- f(x) - 4 Walls (MV)

f(x) returns as a 4 member group now. Great to see them back. The album is not so bad with some good tracks. 4 Walls hasn't hooked me yet, but it is one of their better songs to me.

- In case you never knew what my 3 main hobbies are, I got all 3 of these items on the same day (10.23).  


- I've had really dry eyes over the last month (continues in November). For a while, I didn't do anything about it because it was a short lived nuisance. But the dryness started to last longer and longer. Finally bought some eye drops and they have helped. The dryness doesn't happen that often, but it still occurs more than I would like. It does force me to (at least when I'm home) stay off my computer. It sucks the most when I'm driving. I have plenty of eye drops to last for a while though.   

- October is over. So much happened. I've been busier than ever. I'm glad to say that the goods are outweighing the bad. The one thing I could ask for is a little more free time to hang out with people that want to see me. 

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

 
 
 

PS: BoA with dark black hair, gorgeous. 

"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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