Sunday, July 1, 2018

June 2018 Entry

June 2018 Entry 

Hello. Before I forget, I'm going to make a section just about wrestling now. Unless it (or other topics) are related to one string of events, it will be separated as you will read about shortly. So it's random things, wrestling, video games, work, ending. Now let's talk about June 2018. 

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- Can't recall where I saw or heard about the Cherry Cola Oreos, but I ordered them as per my monthly snacks. They came in (06.03) and I actually haven't tried them yet. That happened with the last set of Oreos I bought. For now, they're in a snack drawer in my room (yes, I now have a snack drawer in my room). 


- Unfortunately, my trip to visit a friend in Austin was cancelled (06.03). We had been planning it for a couple of weeks and she cancelled it the week of. It really sucks because we used to be really close and this would have been great for us to reconnect. Perhaps some other time. This just reminded me of so many other plans in the last few years that didn't pan out.  

- My shirt of The IIconics came in on the same night I went to see RAW (06.04). I was waiting for my close friend to show up, but he was late coming from work. We ended up missing the preshow and part of the opening to RAW as the lines for food and drinks were also long. That was also the first time I ever bought a drink at a wrestling event (it was hot outside waiting for my friend). I normally don't like to buy food or drinks at any event, but I really needed it this time. The show was great (never been to a live show that wasn't). 


Afterwards, we went to Tout Suite to eat and talk. I didn't know their kitchen closed at a certain time so only some food was available. I got a milk tea and brownies. Had a good talk. Left a little before midnight. 

It was a good thing we left when we did. A few minutes after I returned home, my dad called me as his car had stalled and needed to be picked up. The battery was dead and would not charge with the charger we had. We ended up hauling the car back home and thankfully it wasn't that far (normally 2 minutes). What sucked was that the ropes we were using kept coming off. It took about 15 minutes to get this done. We then secured the car and covered it up (couldn't roll the windows back up) and we were done (1:45AM). 

And it was a good thing that ended when it did. Shortly after, the brownie and milk tea ended up being too sweet for me and my heart was reacting to it. I tried to just go to sleep, but it was something I've had to deal with in the past so I knew my normal methods would not work and they didn't. Maybe an hour after trying, I noticed my mom was still awake so I went to her for assistance stating the issues of why. She gave me some Advil and then a massage to calm me down. I ended up sleeping some time after 3:30AM. I was incredibly drained the next day. Had to take a nap at some point, which I rarely do, but I needed to. 

On a positive note, I procured Smackdown house show tickets (09.15) for myself and my cousins. And I know what shirt I will be wearing for that event.  

- Was supposed to have my first official day at the second location (06.08). That unfortunately didn't pan out as the a/c broke and we had to go to the downtown location. I didn't let that stop the plans I had for that night though even though tons of signs pointed to no. Normally I would listen to my intuitions, but I needed that night out.  

- Woke up from a dream involving the Eh Bee Family (06.10). They are absolutely my favorite family on YouTube and really enjoy their content and who they are. From what I can remember, we were at a futuristic amusement park. I didn't do any of the crazy rides because I don't in real life, but I do remember we drove a test car (or something similar). At some point, Papa Bee and I were talking about the new security system that scans eyes for authorization. When I was trying to get back home, the security system could not read my eye. Luckily the Game Grumps were there to help me break a window to get back in. 

- For at least half a year, my computer speakers have had some issues. The main thing was that when I would turn the speakers off, turning them back on would be a hassle. If the button is pressed the whole way, it won't always be on. I would sometimes have to tap the button or press it with enough pressure and they will work. But it finally came to a point where that simple solution took multiple tries and minutes to get them to work sometimes. So I ordered some new ones on Amazon. Didn't install them until a day later after they were delivered (06.16). These are a lot better. Same brand as the previous speakers and were at a decent price. I have thought to replace my keyboard and mouse soon because they were just as old as the speakers (5-10 years), but those are still functioning properly. 

- Another dear friend texted me earlier in the month saying she wanted to take me to a restaurant with a lot of cute girls. We finally went and it was a Korean restaurant called Ohm (06.20). When I first walked in, TWICE's "Cheer Up" was playing. The place had a nice wood aesthetic and monitors all around showing different Korean videos. My friend got there and she mentioned how none of the cute girls were working. So we were both disappointed by that, ha. Some other time. The food was good though so I would definitely go again. We then went to a milk tea place in that same strip. They also served ice cream and offered board games and comics to read. We ended up playing Jenga and got it to a point where we couldn't continue without the tower falling. We left it that way and continued talking. Her husband joined us there after playing basketball. He mentioned how he might go out to eat with his friends so that me and her can hang out longer. Once he split, we went to another place to hang out. After that, I took her back home and talked in the car for a bit waiting for her husband to come back since he had her keys. All in all, a very fun and memorable night. 

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- I didn't get to see NXT TakeOver Chicago II live as usual, but I did catch up on it after work (06.17). As usual, it was incredible. 

- Money In The Bank was the next day (06.18). Great card. Only one match was a dud if anything. Definitely a great PPV. 


- Rest In Peace, Vader (06.20). I actually remember being scared of him when I was younger. He was big and intimidating and his strikes looked very legit to me. But he was always a great performer. Too bad you weren't inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame while you were alive, but hopefully they put you in now. 

- Got a few more wrestling shirts (06.24). It was a buy one, get one for $1 deal. Got an Alexa Bliss and Matt Hardy shirt. Both are of a different material that only a few WWE shirts have so they are very comfortable. 


- The second United Kingdom Championship Tournament was fun (06.25, 06.26). I don't think it was as good as the first one, but it still had great matches. British Strong Style VS The Undisputed Era was an amazing match. 

The second day for the tournament finals was stacked with great matches. it was pretty much another TakeOver. Mustache Mountain VS The Undisputed Era started things off hot. Velveteen Dream and EC3 VS Ricochet and Aleister Black was fun. Baszler VS Storm was a great outing for the women (Storm was one of my favorites in the Mae Young Classic).  


- And finally, finally Bayley goes off on Sasha Banks and it was incredible (06.25). 


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- Beat the first half of the Legacy Collection last month. This month, I finished Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. Beat 7 and 8 on the same day (06.03). That marked the first time I played 8 since it was originally released. Same goes with 9 (06.04) and 10 (06.05). I did miss the rewind function that the first 6 had added on to them as it would have been great to have on these titles too. But I definitely took advantage of the save state function. All in all, it was great to go through the entire Mega Man Legacy Collection. 

- Finally got around to playing Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (06.06). It was great to get back into it, but I forgot how challenging it actually is. I was able to finish the Story Mode like I had planned (06.10), but I still went back to it with a goal of unlocking the rest of the characters. I did manage to do that (06.19). Had I read stuff online a little closer, I would have unlocked the last few earlier as their paths were laid out  fairly easy to unlock them on the Adventure Maps. I ended up trying to unlock more weapons rather than characters and that was actually proving to be more of a challenge at times. There were 2 more characters to unlock, which were Ganon and Cucco. That had to be done via the Challenge Modes with Ganon, who you automatically have to use. To unlock the Cucco, you have to beat the last and toughest survival battle with Ganon and get an A rank. After 42 minutes and 23 seconds, I beat that challenge with a B rank (06.24). While I had a system down, it was tough and I could have died in one hit for the last 10 minutes. 

I really enjoyed my time playing Hyrule Warriors again, but after that last challenge, I knew I was done. There's so much to do in that game and I know I would not be able to do it all within a time frame I had left before other games came out. But it was a fun adventure. I put in more time this second time through the game than I originally did. I would be willing to play it with a partner if they ever wanted to try it. As for solo, only if I had nothing else to play...maybe. I definitely need to be better about my duration or play style as my arm would definitely hurt a lot after playing the game for many hours. 


- E3 2018 came and went (06.10). It was good all around. Below are the presentations that stood out to m.  

Bethesda - I don't play any Bethesda games, but I really enjoyed their entire presentation. I did download Fallout Shelter since it is free, but I have yet to try it. Maybe during a gaming lull in the future. 
Ubisoft - They show a lot of emotion and excitement. It was cool to see them do another game with Nintendo support (Starlink + StarFox). 

Limited Run Games - I almost missed out on this one as I don't follow them, but they had some good reveals. I am contemplating buying the physical version of Thumper when it comes out.  

Sony - Sony's presentation started off odd, but then they showed off some great games. Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us II look so good, but the Resident Evil 2 Remake was incredible. 


Nintendo - Great presentation that was dedicated primarily to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. While I did wish for a few more games to be highlighted, it was hard to not to be excited about everything Ultimate has. I reserved it the next day (GameStop attendant said the sku title changed minutes before I reserved it). 


- Rumors of Fortnite coming to the Switch were true. I downloaded it and decided to give it a try (06.12). It took a while for me to like it. The first 2 games I played, I died via the storm. Fortnite would benefit from having a simple tutorial mode as it took me some time to get acclimated with the controls and how to play the game. I definitely suck at building so I don't really concentrate on doing that. Sure, I won a Victory Royale, but I didn't do much in that game. Thankfully, I got to play with Agent Striker a few times and had a lot of fun in those matches. He taught me quite a few things I wouldn't have known had I not played with him. He's very good at it too. Wouldn't mind playing a few more rounds with him as playing with others I don't know are blah. 

- With Hyrule Warriors story mode completed, I was thinking if there was time to play Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. As I mentioned last month I was unsure of how I wanted to tackle this game. But with a time frame set, I knew it was going to be an all Ryu play and that started with the very first Street Fighter (06.13). That game is tough. I spent a longer time playing that game than the rest. It's an old school game and the computer hits hard. I knew I had to take advantage of save states. My final fight with Sagat became a fight of when I would create damage, I save otherwise I would not have been able to beat it. That same day, I beat all versions of Street Fighter II. 

I was looking forward to going through the Alpha trilogy as that series is my favorite of the Street Fighter games (06.14). I like the style, the music, the characters, the game play, everything about that series. It felt great getting to play those titles after many years. 

A few days later, I beat all 3 of the Street Fighter III series (06.18). Other than Street Fighter V (never touched yet), I was the least familiar with these games. I knew of the characters, but their fighting styles were unfamiliar so I had to learn. But I definitely see whey 3rd Strike is as highly acclaimed as it is. It's very refined. After a few hours, I was done with them. And that made the entire anniversary collection finished for me. I'll pop it in and play it with others if they want, but other than that, I don't see myself going back to it. 
  

- During a break between Street Fighter II games, I hopped on to play my daily round of Toreba (06.13). I had seen the prize for a Famicom before, but I wasn't able to get it in my past attempts. While watching a few others try, I saw a technique for making it drop that I never saw before. So I got in the queue and waited my turn. I knew I was at least going to use up my free credits, which I had 5 at the time, and maybe spend a few additional dollars if I were close. But on my third turn, I got it to fall. I was extremely excited, but then was worried as the prize didn't show up in my cart. A few minutes later, I got an email confirming the win accompanied with a video (you can see it linked in the tweet below). It shipped a few days later (06.18). And as of typing this, I'm still waiting for it to arrive. 

It finally arrived (06.26). For some reason, I thought it was an actual Famicom system, but it's a knock-off called a Game Computer. Smaller system and smaller controllers with 28 built-in games. Didn't get a chance to try it yet, but somewhere down the road I will. Posted it a few days later as I forgot I took a photo of it, ha. 


- Lumines Remastered was available to download (06.26). I did pre-purchase it on the 13th making it the first time I ever did prepaid for a downloadable title. Never played the original Lumines or any other iteration before so I was excited to finally play it. It's a tough rhythm game with great music and visuals. I did have to turn down the HD Rumble as it was a bit much for some songs. And there is a lot to do and my skill is limited so I made sure I was able to at least finish the VS CPU mode (06.27). That itself wasn't easy. I know I lucked out on a few matches. Regardless, I did it. 


- Limbo and Inside came out on eShop (06.28). I've seen a play through of Inside so I have it on my wish list to possibly buy it at a discount. I have only played a demo of Limbo on the Xbox 360. So this was finally my chance to play the game. I definitely had to look up a few of the answers to some of the puzzles as there were a few tough ones. I did see there were collectibles to find, but after seeing how long it took me to play the game, I decided on completing it and just finish it. Glad I got a chance to play it. 


- Picked up the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (06.29). I have only played a few levels of the first game on the Playstation (at least the first...3 levels) and have never touched the others. So I am excited to beat each one. The plan is to beat each one in a single sitting since each averages around 6-8 hours. I don't plan to complete each one as of now. I'm going to go into the games blind and not look up anything unless I'm really stuck. If anything, I do want to try the hardest stage that was a thing for a while when the game came out on other consoles. And in case my schedule gets messed up for outside reasons, I have some time in between this and the next scheduled game I'm planning to get. And I do not plan to put the Micro Blocks figure together (275 pieces). I do like that it is a crate like in the game though. 




- And I don't remember when I started doing this, but I started to rewatch episodes of X-Play. Someone in the OverBlood Facebook group posted a video and I watched it and random ones that popped up that were recommended. Some of it still holds up. It's also interesting to jump back and forth from TechTV and G4 episodes randomly to see the differences. 


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- Completed the trailer for Episode 05: The Countdown and released it to the public (06.04). My cousin is the male lead. He's done a couple of our escape rooms so I'm glad he was able to be part of the trailer. I did have to ask him to come by the house on a separate day to record one small audio clip (the ending). Check it out if you haven't. 


- June 2018 meeting (06.07). First meeting with 3 new faces and our second one to happen in the middle of the day. We played 3 Monkeys afterwards as our activity before getting back to work.


- Speaking of new faces, we hired 4 new trainees. The hiring and training process was much different this time as I was not involved in it really (maybe 10% at the beginning). I did have a talk with the first 3 that started at the same time to let them know that it was different. Mentioned it to the 4th the week after. I still don't think it's the best way to train anyone whether they're seasonal or not, but all 4 did pass and were hired on. I have been continuing their training as there are still rough edges on all of them, but it didn't help that I was not told of the entire plan of what the trainees can/can't do/learn. There is actually a 5th one that I haven't met yet as he works in production and only a few hours a day that I'm not around. Nonetheless, welcome aboard Agent Apollo, Hourglass, Wolfman, Greenbean, and Hypnotic.  

- As mentioned earlier, my first official day at the second location got delayed. They were still setting up things and then the a/c broke. So those of us that were to be working there had our shifts stay at the original location. I still think we could have done some work there. The a/c would have been the main thing to stop us, but thankfully that is fixed now. I was even supposed to start helping at the end of the month, but was once again changed to just work at our original location. It's frustrating. 

On the topic of hours, I don't get as many now. Even before I was management, I was getting 40 hours a week. This past month, the lowest number of hours I had was 16 and that is below the minimum we set of 20. It is upsetting to see my paychecks be incredibly low at times. Had my lowest one ever this month. While I don't have many projects to do (although I'm getting tagged and asked about things I have nothing to do with), I could still have assisted in the second location. Agent Voxel mentioned how an extra hand to hold things, move things, etc would have been great and I would have been able to help. On top of all this, a lot of tasks I used to be in charge of were slowly and silently given to others. Just tell me I'm not doing those things anymore instead of me finding out about it through other means... 

The joke that I say nowadays is that I'm sorry for complaining and nagging more than I used to.  

- Agent Ingenue has taken over the monthly blogs, yay. Here's the latest blog for June 2018. 

http://www.houstonescaperoom.com/blog/2018/6/30/to-the-moon-in-the-month-of-june

- Agent Gig has left the company to pursue his Master's (05.29). I knew of this as soon as he told me about getting accepted. A few others knew, but he announced it to everyone at the last meeting. He's leaving really big shoes to fill and I don't think we ever can get someone as passionate and awesome as him. I salute him, I will miss him, and I know he will continue to become better and better. 

On his final day, I came to work an hour early because we would have missed each other. I went straight to our basement and found him playing a piano (don't know when we got that). We hugged, said some words to each other, and then I stuck around with him as he finished out his final day tasks. It was great seeing everyone saying "bye" to him as no one wanted to see him go, but were all happy for him. Walked him out and said a few more parting words. You will be missed. 

He also mentioned to check my locker. He left me a mech to build, ha. He even left a tool for me to use. He knows it's not my jam, but said this would be a good start. I will try it some time. Thank you so much for the parting gift, Agent Gig. 




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- I'd be open to trying a speed dating system like this. If anyone I know wants to set this up for me or set me up on a regular blind date, I'll gladly welcome it. 


- TWICE - I Want You Back (MV) 


I didn't expect the song to be a cover of the Jackson 5. Very surprising. 

- TaeYeon - Something New (MV) 


- TaeYeon - Stay (MV) 



Something New didn't really catch my interest like her previous solo songs, but the rest of the mini album is good. I liked Stay a lot more. 

- Red Velvet - #CookieJar (MV) 


Not bad for the Japanese debut. 

- Tiffany - Over My Skin (audio) 


Tiffany, you're fantastic. Seeing how she was when she debuted to where she is now, she's had quite the journey. Very proud of her. 


- That's it for June 2018. Thanks for reading. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 



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