Tuesday, September 1, 2015

August 2015 Entry



A lot happened in August.

=========================

- In honor of 3 childhood heroes, thank you.  

- On the 11th, it rained pretty bad. I was at work when it happened. I believe the lights flickered once, but nothing else happened. On the drive home, I did notice a few traffic lights being out. And as I pulled into my neighborhood, all the lights were out. Mom said the power had been out since 6PM. I asked if she wanted to go to our cousin's home nearby, but she didn't want to. I checked a few things online with my phone before it was close to being an empty battery. So that night was tough to sleep in as it was really hot. I did manage to get some sleep by putting the Child of Light OST on via my iPod. I did wake up almost every 60-90 minutes though.

When I got up the next day, I charged my phone with my car charger as well as my mom's. I left an hour early for work that day just because there was no reason for me to wait around without any power when I could do anything I needed there. Mom told me the power came back on around noon.

- DC re-released 6 of their animated movies with the comic it was based on. At first, I wasn't going to buy them, but they were a good deal. I haven't opened them ever since I got them (08.12).


- Saw some anime series pop up online on the 14th. (I think someone I follow on Twitter talked about it). Bikini Warriors is about the silly tropes that happen in RPGs. each episode is around 5 minutes so they're easy to digest.  

- A coworker helps put together music shows for local bands/musicians in Houston. I did want to go to one before that she hyped up, but was too tired after work that day. But I knew I'd go to one of her shows some day to show her support. I invited another coworker and we went to The Joint Show after work (08.15). We stuck around for 2 hours, met up with our coworker, talked to a local artist, watched 2 performances (Colombo and Genesis Blue), saw some improv, coworker bought art from the artist we spoke to earlier, found our other coworker, and then left. It was fun.


- New shirt (08.17). 

- Last year was my year of buying hats. I had not bought any new hats until there was a new deal on Running Man hats. These hats came in on the 19th. I ordered 3, but you will only see 2 in the photo as the other one is a present that I have yet to give.


- NXT Takeover Brooklyn happened on the 22nd. I was working that day and even went out with coworkers after hours. But on the ride home, I made sure to switch my phone to the WWE Network to see/listen to what I can of the replay. "Blue Pants City" was the first thing I heard and that set the tone of it for me. Every match was so good. I had to catch Liger VS Breeze the next day as that was the only match I missed, but I watched everything else late into the night. While the NXT Title Ladder Match between Owens and Balor was great, the ladies should have gone on last. Bayley challenging Sasha Banks for the NXT Women's Championship was absolutely amazing. Everything about it from the lead up, the promo package, their entrances, the match itself, and the curtain call in the end...so damn good. I literally cried seeing Bayely get the pin over Sasha Banks and I still get teary eyed every time I rewatch it. Women's wrestling is at an all time high and it is unbelievable to witness. Thank you to the Four Horsewomen of NXT; Charlotte, Bayley, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch. Paige could be the 5th of that group contributing to great matches.



- The next day (08.23) was SummerSlam. So much wrestling. Again, I listened/watched what I could on my way back home from work and watched the rest of the replay when I got home. It was really entertaining with a great crowd. Pretty much every match was fun to watch. Cena and Rollins was great with an odd finish. Lesnar and Undertaker had a hell of a battle with a wonky ending. Sets up the rubber match, but it was still a weird way to book the finish. The next night of RAW had a lot of surprises though. Sting!

- For some reason, I felt like watching all the cutscenes from Injustice: Gods Among Us. I remember really liking those and still consider them the best part of that fighting game. Thanks to people putting the scenes together on YouTube, I watched all of them again on the 26th. It basically is the length of a DC animated movie. It was fun to watch again.


- After a visit to UH (boy, has that place changed), I went to visit my friend who owns Bite Macarons. It was a slow day for them so we actually had a lot of time to talk. We ended up making dinner plans for Buffalo Wild Wings. Just caught up and went through more memories we've accumulated over 15 years. She definitely is one of the sweetest people I know. Thank you.


=========================

- In amiibo news for me, I actually woke up early and stood in line at my GameStop to reserve the Retro 3 Pack of amiibo (08.08). I was 10th in line out of what seemed to be 15. They had more than enough reservations to go around. I'm just glad to have secured it for myself.


During PAX (27th), a Shovel Knight amiibo was announced. Definitely getting one.


And the next day, wave 5B of amiibo were released via Target for preorder. I was able to preorder Ganondorf, Zero Suit Samus, and the Classic Mario 30th Anniversary amiibo.  

- A friend and I were talking online about light gun games. That made me wonder about the ones released on the Wii. There were 3 (4) I wanted to add to my collection. Thanks to eBay, I was able to get Gunblade NY & LA Machine Guns (2-in-1), Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, and Dead Space: Extraction. The first 2 mentioned arrived on the 19th while it took another week for me to win an auction for Extraction (forgot to take a photo of it).

 

- I had used up my last coins from Club Nintendo a while ago. On the 13th, I finally played Super Mario Bros. While I've beaten the game many times before, this run was to be done without warping. I also wanted to make sure I beat every fake King Koopa with fireballs. It took a good hour to do, but it felt good getting some old school gaming in.


- Next on the list of Club Nintendo games was Super Mario Bros. 3. Much like playing the original Mario, I played through without warping. Spent about 4 hours on the 20th beating this game from start to finish. I also wanted to beat each boss with a different suit every time. Some levels gave me more difficulty than I could remember. It was fun to relive.
  

- One of the Nindie titles finally released. I didn't get Runbow the day of since I had to work, but I bought it and played a bit of it the next day (08.28). While I was iffy about it after trying the demo, it got really good reviews. So far, I think they live up to them. I only have issues with online (game freezing and the lobby messing up), but when it works, it is great. Solo play is pretty challenging. I'm liking it.


- Along with Runbow, I also downloaded Sin & Punishment (Wii U, N64 VC). I was curious about it before when it was released on the Wii's Virtual Console, but I passed it up. And since I added Sin & Punishment: Star Successor to my collection, I felt compelled to get the original. I played it on the 30th and it is a tough game. It's supposedly short, but I died a lot and I'm only about 2/3 in. I'll come back to it some time to finish it off.


=========================

- Took Agent Scarlet out (08.03) in thanks for everything she had done for us with the 3rd Room. She really is very integral as the room would not be the way it is now without her. This was also a good opportunity to get to know her better as there really wasn't much time to talk as she was doing any work. A very cool person.

- We had our first wedding proposal happen at HER on the 4th of August. We actually thought it was for someone else who called the same day an email asking about it was sent. The first one never happened, but this email inquiry did.

Agent Yeti was the one doing the email correspondence, but she wasn't scheduled to work during that time so I took the role of facilitator for the proposal. She did however create some generic posters that we can use for future proposals. I did change the briefing for Grandma's just a little to have it make sense. The day of, I also put the ring in the room.

It was only 4 people for the group as they didn't want strangers to join (so they bought all 10 spots). Everyone, except the one to be proposed to, were in on it. Once in the room, I helped them as much as I could to lead them to the ring. At first I wasn't going to help them, but they needed it. I pointed out where the ring would be as well as gave them a lot of extra hints as stealthily as I could so that the proposee wouldn't notice. I would make sure that her back was turned, there was a wall between us, point to where things lead to, and even typed out notes on my phone and showed it to the others.

The proposee actually got the key needed to open the box with the ring. The proposer cleverly then said "Let me open it. I haven't opened anything yet." That was actually true, ha. In there was the artifact/ring with a note on how to make it valuable. It was a small ruse as to her proposing to her girlfriend. I stopped the timer as we all watched on. It was very great to see.

After they got out, the other Agents on hand (except one in a room) were outside in the briefing room to congratulate the newly engaged couple. We also gave them an art piece that Agent Yeti bought that was signed by the Agents there that day (just as an extra gift  for them). This definitely was one of the big highlights for me working at HER. It ranks as the second best thing I was a part of with the pregnancy reveal still being at the top.

https://instagram.com/p/5_JNFpIXYJ/

- On August 6th, a few flash mob friends came through HER. I saw them at this year's Japan Festival and mentioned that I worked at an escape room. They mentioned that they were going to one in Niagra Falls. After they did that, they immediately signed up to do Mo's Safehouse at HER.

The day they came was a day off for me, but I wanted to be their observer. They got out and had a blast. We then went to Cafe 101 to eat and catch up. I also wanted to hear what they thought of our escape room compared to the one in Niagra Falls. It was good to get their feedback and just to catch up with them.


- The 8th marked one year when I had my interview at HER. The 9th was my one year anniversary. My life has definitely changed ever since then.

- Did some late night editing on the 16th.  I resynced one of the clues for one of the rooms and even uploaded it onto YouTube as a backup in case something craps out in the room.

- Agent Ro was in town earlier in the month, but left to only come back a short time later. He was mainly here to help get more of the 3rd Room done as well as be part of our new monthly meetings. Not everyone was available for the meeting (08.17), but it was still good. We did an activity in which we recited the rules and briefings to each other while giving notes to one another. It was an odd activity, but it was good to see each other actually give them.

After the meeting, all of us (minus one) went to a new escape room that just opened. They had been to HER before and recognized a few of us before realizing we all worked there. The room we went through was small, but okay. Definitely saw why the limit was 6 people (we asked before booking if we could have 7). We went to Starbucks after to talk about it. I think the general consensus was that we were more impressed with their lobby than their room. Thanks to the awesome team, my record for escape rooms is now 6-2.


Agent Ro and I went back to HER. I actually got car sick trying to type out an email for him, so I laid down for a while as he was doing an interview. Afterwards, we actually talked a lot about how things were going with the 3rd Room. I got to vent some frustrations I had with the project overall and we came to a reasonable solution on how to handle things. We also talked about general operations and how the staff were as well as a few other things. It was a good talk that got us both really motivated.

- It had been a long time since Agent Valentine had been at HER. So it was good to see her come in on the 19th to work on something for the 3rd Room. It wasn't something she could complete on one day so she had come in a few times throughout the next couple weeks. It is great to finally see that piece be worked on for the room.

https://instagram.com/p/6lee4mIXeZ/

- We had a weekend where a lot of staff members were out on vacation (leaving only 4 of us) so we had short days. We did spend those extra hours working on stuff for the 3rd Room. Although I did want some of us to go out to eat afterwards on the 22nd. Agent Blue chose Bombay Pizza and I believe neither he, Agent Gig, or I had been there before. We all liked what we had, but Agent Gig and I instantly regretted not getting larger sizes of our pizza, ha. On the way back to HER, Agent Blue and I joked around about how everything will be better with Agent Yeti being back the next day.  


- Agent Yeti returned on the 23rd. Agent Blue and I were continuing with our silly little joke about celebrating her return after being gone for just 2 days. We informed Agent Gig and Agent Pow-Popper what was going on. We also tried to schedule Agent Yeti to do the last session so that we can set up something for her. But priorities of the 3rd Room arose. In the end, it made sense for me to take her along to shop for things for the 3rd Room instead of another Agent since we knew what we were kind of looking for.

After coming back from Target with what we bought, Agent Blue went to go "move his car" while the rest of us were assembling new furniture and completing other tasks. What Agent Blue really did was go to Tout Suite to buy some cupcakes. He set those up in our conference room with a note for her. Once we finished up all our duties and were set to leave, we were turning off all the lights. Agent Yeti opened up the conference room door to turn those off and exclaimed "what is that?" We went in and thanked Agent Yeti for all that she does and that we missed her the last 2 days. We talked and shared some stories while eating cupcakes before leaving for the day.


- Came to HER (08.24) to open the door for a contractor to do work on lights and hang up some things in. He was a little later than scheduled, but thankfully he did arrive to do what needed to be done. I assisted when necessary, but otherwise I was cleaning and taking care emails and phone calls...and taking some time to catch up on StreetPasses. I had been at HER a lot on Mondays lately (our day off), but this was the first time in a while that I was able to leave early and be back home.

- Contacted Agent Scarlet about installing lights into the 3rd Room (spoilers, it was very dark). She was able to come in on the 29th. She consulted with Agent Yeti and myself before she and I ventured off to Home Depot and IKEA. It was great having Agent Scarlet's expertise in knowing what to get as I would just grab what I thought was necessary. And we both had fun getting "lost" in IKEA, ha.

When we got back, there was a situation going on at HER. I helped with what I could then with getting things squared away. Then I went back to assisting Agent Scarlet with the lights. I questioned her if we would be done today or if it had to extend to Sunday, but she was able to complete the task, yay.

We then went to find a good place to record an audio clue we're using for the 3rd Room. Unfortunately, the main building we use was occupied with customers and the noise was leaking through. We decided to try the basement area. Odd thing, there were burgers and fries strewn about on the stairs leading to the basement, ha. While the basement seemed better, we were both kind of questioning it. Regardless, we did a few takes of the dialogue and having fun with it (accents, silly voices, general goofiness in between takes). Listening back to it at the time, it sounded fine. I thanked Agent Scarlet and saw her off before going back to work.   

- We started a new schedule due to some of the Agents going back to school, the 30th marked the first Sunday I had off in a long time. I had always mentioned that I would take at least one Sunday off to watch wrestling, but I had not done that in a long time. And while this was a day off, I still did some work from home and it mainly involved editing.

First, I listened to the audio recording Agent Scarlet and I did the day before. While it was better than our original improvised dialogue, there was still a lot of noticeable echo that I could not remove. I compared the audio to old audio recordings I've done and knew we could do better. Agent Scarlet and I scheduled for another recording.

The other thing I worked on was the end game for the 3rd Room if a team does not escape. The main part was easy since I just had to overlay it. The part that took the longest was looking for the end game graphics, finding appropriate sounds, and putting all of those together for a small 5 second part at the end of the long video. It took a while to export out (twice since I added one simple thing after the first export). So I spent that time playing Runbow and Sin & Punishment. In the end, the video is good to go.

- Met up with Agent Scarlet at UH on the 31st. Our original idea of where to record wasn't going to work out since there was a lot of echo and background noise even though it had been used for recordings by others (wasn't good enough for me). We went around the building for a while looking for other areas before ending up in an alcove right at the doors of the theatre stage (which I feel like I've watched a performance before). More goofiness ensued during the recordings, but these went rather well and didn't take as long to complete with me being very satisfied with the sound quality. I thanked Agent Scarlet again for helping before heading out.

- The 3rd Room is progressing well, but definitely is not meeting any deadline for beta testing. I pushed it back so many times with the latest supposed to be during the first week of September. There are just so many things that are not ready. Saying that, things are being completed though. Everyone is contributing (time, finishing puzzles, miscellaneous tasks, etc). It's great seeing the team pull together in one way or another. Agent Yeti has definitely been integral in making sure things were on track and getting completed. But the little things (that are very important) are still delaying us from starting any earlier. Soon though, soon.   
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- SNSD - Lion Heart (MV)

- SNSD - You Think (MV)

Based on the videos alone, I liked You Think better. I also thought the song was better. Over time though, I really enjoyed Lion Heart a lot more. It might be because that's the song they're actually promoting and performing, but I do like it more than You Think now.

Oh, and Kwon Yuri...mm-hmm. She definitely has been my favorite during these promotions.


- One thing Agent Scarlet and I talked about when we went out at the beginning of the month was an old Nickelodeon show called. Roundhouse. It's pretty much sketch comedy with song and dance numbers. I have never met anyone that knew about that show and the fact that she knew the show was incredible. That night, I looked online to see if I could find episodes on YouTube. Someone had thankfully compiled (almost) every episode of the show throughout its four seasons on the air. Ripped all of them and proceeded to watch a few episodes a day.

Sure, some of the jokes were dated, but I still laughed. I really wasn't surprised that I could still quote certain jokes/episodes, sing some of the songs (didn't take long for me to start singing along with the main theme), and remember a lot of the dances they did. I waited until the last episode to attempt doing the dance at the end of the show. It was hard to resist especially since the steps were coming back to me. Did a lot of chair dancing until I did it for real. I wasn't perfect the first time, but I was fine on my third attempt.

I watched the final episode on the 14th meaning it took me about 10 days to watch all the episodes. This was definitely one of the highlights of August. And because of rewatching Roundhouse, I will now end every post they way they end the show.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsyxZA2SaLNWES2i_zQIcehkBL1vblcS_

- August was very busy and stressful. I am thankful for the positive moments that came along and those involved with those. September, let's go.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.





 
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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Monday, August 3, 2015

July 2015 Entry



July was a challenging one.

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- For July 4th, I was originally going to go fishing with a friend to continue our yearly tradition. Unfortunately, he was unable to get a babysitter so we had to cancel. I didn't have any other plans so I just caught up on a few things to watch.

The WWE Network aired Beast In The East live early in the morning. I didn't catch it live, but caught the replay. It was great. The Japan crowd is amazing. Finn Balor, congratulations on being the new NXT Champion. You deserve it.

I also finished re-rewatching season one of Invincible Youth. I don't remember why I wanted to watch it again, but it was fun to revisit after so many years.

- My copy of BoA - Here I Am arrived on the 13th. The poster came later (pictured later). I still haven't watched it. July was busy so I haven't just carved a 2 hour block to sit down and watch it. Hopefully some time in August. If not August, I'll definitely make time for it in September.


- One of the greatest things happened on RAW on the 13th, the Divas Revolution. It has already been rumored that some of the NXT women would move up to the main roster. We did not just get one make it to the main roster, we got 3. Becky Lynch, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks. Ever since then, the Divas division has definitely been better. Congratulations to these 3 incredibly talented wrestlers.


- The Death Battle rematch, Goku VS Superman 2, happened on the 18th. I was able to watch it as it aired live from SGC. It was cool that they did a little extra bit for the crowd in attendance. The outcome, very much expected. I did like the first fight better, but the second fight was still fun to watch. Watching the live panel online after it aired, crazy. I understand fandoms and how you strongly back who you like, but geez. Logically explanations and evidence be damned, ha.


- More Kpop items arrived on the 20th. This time it was the BoA poster mentioned earlier and my copy of SNSD's PARTY CD.


- Waking up to read the news of Hulk Hogan (24th) was nuts. I even remember reading his tweet before the news broke out before I went to bed the night before. I was shocked. One of my childhood heroes is basically erased from the history books now. It's totally understandable, but wow. Brings back memories of when Chris Benoit was erased from the history books. It took a year for me to be able to watch a Benoit match without feeling weird. Seeing things with Hogan in it lately, similar feeling. But I'm pretty much going to handle this the way I did with Benoit. I will still appreciate what they did for the wrestling industry, but I don't condone or approve of what they did.  

- On the 28th, I picked up 3 Blu-rays. 2 were DC animated movies; Batman VS Robin and Justice League: Gods & Monsters. The other Blu-ray was The Kliq Rules. 


Batman VS Robin came out back in April, but I forgot about and didn't even hear much about it. The following link are my thoughts on the movie. Short summary: didn't like it.
https://www.facebook.com/arnell.ragasa/posts/10153588934101929?pnref=story

Justice League: Gods & Monsters, I really enjoyed this one. Definitely recommend it. Read my thoughts on it with the next link.
https://www.facebook.com/arnell.ragasa/posts/10153589406741929

I did get through all of The Kliq Rules as well. That was a lot of wrestling, but I had most of the matches on in the background. The documentary part was good. Very much recommended especially if you are a fan HBK, HHH, Nash, Hall, and X-Pac.

- Found out from my mom (07.30.) that my brother is moving out in September. Work is relocating him to Dallas. Never thought this would happen (not to get into the details of why). This did bring up the conversation that I need to help pay more of the bills. I'm okay with that, but my mom gave an underhanded comment about how I have to "start" paying the bills, which she retracted almost immediately because I have been. I've been paying bills and help pay for the vacations my parents take. I do more than my part when it comes to bills. My personal bills aren't that much so paying more bills is fine. I just can't put as much of my paycheck away as I used to.  

- Coming home from a rough day at work at the end of the month, I went to Jack In The Box. Sitting in the drive-thru, I was scrolling through Twitter to catch up on things and came across news that was unexpected. Rowdy Roddy Piper had passed away. "What the f*ck" is what I said out loud. I just could not believe it. He had been doing great and still had plenty to offer. He was only 61. Another childhood hero has passed away. While Dusty Rhodes' passing hurt, this one hurt more as I am a bigger fan of Piper. Thank you for the memories and all that you contributed to the wrestling world.


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- The Wii Fit Trainer amiibo became available on GameStop's site (07.06.15). I snagged it up right away.


- Xenoblade Chronicles 3D...I hit another snag where I had to just level up to progress (07.09.15). I spent a few hours to gain at least 4-5 levels and I still wasn't good enough to beat the boss that I was stuck at. I actually haven't played the game since then. While I know RPGs are supposed to be this way, this normally doesn't happen when I play. Seeing as I don't have a lot of time to play games anymore, I didn't enjoy spending hours just fighting the same enemies to level up. This reminded me of when I was playing Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga. I hit a big road block where the enemies in front of me were too strong to beat and the enemies before me were too weak to level up in a timely fashion. I was enjoying the game too and that is what's happening with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. Don't know if I'll go back to it any time soon unfortunately. This definitely is making me think again about buying Xenoblade Chronicles X.  

- Satoru Iwata...your passing was unexpected. I remember coming home that day on the 12th. I was getting ready to load up YouTube videos to watch while I ate dinner and I saw videos mentioning his passing. I immediately said "what the hell" out loud. While he has had some health issues, he seemed to be doing well on his way to recovery. This one hurt. Satoru Iwata was definitely one very important person in my life in regards to playing video games. It was great to see and read a lot of the positive comments, articles, and tribute videos fans had been making in his honor. His influence will definitely live on in the hearts of many gamers and his family and friends.  

"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." - Satoru Iwata


- Target offered some rare amiibo on the 15th. I was able to get Marth and Rosalina & Luma amiibo. Oddly though, I wasn't able to get them in the same order. I had to pay for shipping twice. Not the worst thing, but I was hoping they could at least bundle the orders together and save a customer some money.


- I started watching The Completionist after he had a few stints on Grumpcade. I knew about him for a long time, but just never went out of the way to watch his videos. Now I've seen most of them (at least for the games I had played or were interested in). Check out his YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThatOneVideoGamer

- The Completionist did do a complete series of videos on Final Fantasy VII and the games that spun off from them. His video Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII got me interested in watching the cut scenes for the game to learn about the story. Found a YouTube video with all of the scenes stitched together and watched all 3 hours of it on the 18th. I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed the game had I played it.


=========================

- Agent Audrey had her last day at HER on the 3rd. It was my day off, but I went to order cupcakes (with a message) to bring for the staff that were there. We ended up sharing a few stories and memories. She's on to greater things, but we do miss her.


- I blanked out on a briefing for the first time ever since working at HER. This happened on the 7th. It was...baffling. I just blanked out and had to ask Agent Blue to continue while I went to the break room. I needed a few minutes to just collect myself, but...yeah, I don't know what happened. I chalked it up to July being an emotional and stressful month in general because of what happened last year. Ever since that blank out, I have found myself not being as smooth with my briefings for either room. It's not so obvious, but I definitely know.   

- The 12th marked one year after going to my first escape room. I let Agent K and Z know that it had been one year since I had met them. The 16th marked one year after I sent HER an email inquiring about employment.

- On the 20th, I met up with Agent Scarlet at HER to do filming for the 3rd Room. It was a day off for me, but we needed to get this done since her schedule was limited as well. It went on a little longer than we had planned and not everything was perfect, but it went really well. Agent Scarlet definitely took on her role and was an amazing actress. Thank you, Agent Scarlet.

The editing process was smooth and only hit a few snags. Definitely was a reminder of why I liked and disliked editing videos, but this time it was more on the positive side. Agent Ro is the only other person to see the clips and he was very impressed with them.  

- Last month, we had a total of 4 trainees. Unfortunately, only 2 are still with us. I mentioned last month that one left us for another job. Another that was Agent Audrey's friend left us saying that she would not be able to meet our expectations that we had set forth considering her already busy schedule. The other 2 that stayed on progressed really well and are now full fledged agents.

Shortly after Agent Pow Poper and Agent Gig became agents, we gained another trainee. This time it was Agent Audrey's brother. So far he has been doing great. He's not a full fledged agent yet, but he will be in August at the rate he's progressing.


- If you recall past entries, I had been late to work on Fridays almost all the time ever since I started working Fridays. Leaving the normal hour before work was causing me to be 15-30 minutes late. On the 24th, I finally remembered to leave 90 minutes early. Now I arrive to HER at most 15 minutes early and I still sit in some traffic. So I still sacrifice some free time to not be late. Better early than late.

And this was probably the worst things I've ever had to experience since working at HER. Sure, there are some bad groups that aren't that fun to facilitate, but this still was horrible. Long story short, after leading my last group out the door, I was pulled aside by one of the aunts of a group of girls that were going in next with some strangers. I was told that the adults were making fun of the girls and making racial comments. So I basically split the groups up and had the girls leave and come back to do the other room they weren't even scheduled for. I have never had to do that before. There are some groups that don't work well together, but they weren't in the room yet. I made sure all the staff know because we were basically working an extra session and they just needed to know what had happened. This is by far the worst thing I have had to encounter at HER.  

- We ended up closing early on the 25th. Agent Blue, Pow Poper, Gig, our Agent In Training, and myself were the only ones working. I asked around if they wanted to eat afterwards. Agent In Training already had plans and the rest of us decided to go eat at Smash Burger since some of them had not been there before.

We ended up talking about the names of the Fast and Furious movies (ala Game Grumps) before heading out to continue chilling at Bite Macaron (again, some had not been there before). More stupid stuff came out and we all had a great time just laughing and being dumb. The following Tweet was pretty much an accurate summary of our night, ha.


- Agent Ro came in on the 26th for a few days. His main focus was to help get the 3rd Room up and running for beta testing in August. Definitely need the help. We made a lot of plans.

Spent another Monday off doing work by going shopping with him to buy some stuff we needed (and a few extras). It was good to catch up as well and discuss more things about the business.

We did take a break during heavy traffic time to stop at Bite. Second time that my friend wasn't there, but we still had a good discussion with her fiancé. While we had planned to do another BiteHER collaboration in July, we were all busy. Hopefully it happens in August.

- Team RPG  was formed on the 28th. That is all, ha.


- Agent Ro had asked for all available staff to join for a meeting on the 29th. It was actually to just get all of us together to eat dinner and play games. He's hoping this will become a monthly thing just so we can relax and have fun especially since we had new staff members. I went with Agent M to pick up some Buffalo Wild Wings (not at the closest location thanks to my dumb self, ha).

After dinner, we played Spyfall. I had heard about it and the majority of us never played it. Basically everyone is given a card that tells you your role and the location you are at. One card is the spy who does not know where the location is and has to guess correctly before everyone else figures out that they are the spy. I was the spy for the first, third, and fifth game. The first two times I was the spy, I made premature guesses (confidently), but was incorrect. The last game, I knew where we were, but decided to ride it out and have everyone try to guess who the spy was. That was a great win for me and a great way to end the night. Everyone played really well and we had lots of fun.

- Coming off such a great day at work, the month ends with frustration. Things broke, couldn't fix them in a proper way, customers were not the greatest...yeah...

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- Girl's Day - Ring My Bell (MV)

- Girls' Generation - PARTY (MV)

- I had asked off from work for the 18th and 19th as the 19th would be one year after Grandma Gina had passed away. While there were no official plans of the family getting together, I just knew I didn't want to be at work during that day.

I texted my cousin asking if there were any family plans. That actually started the string of events of her asking family if they wanted to get together. It was decided that we would all have lunch at my cousin's father's home on the 19th.

It was great seeing the family that could make it out that day. We (some of us) were surprised to see the oldest daughter there as she is now living in Florida. We were all just sitting around talking and catching up with each other. At the end, a few of us went to the grave and then parted ways to go home. It was good to get together. Grandma Gina, we miss you and love you. 

- July...was rough. I did chalk a lot of the emotional and frustrating things to knowing that this was the month Grandma passed away last year. I just didn't expect a lot of the negative things to happen. I'm hoping August will be better. There definitely are a lot of things on the horizon. Those will be talked about if they happen in next month's entry.  

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.

 
Take care. DFTBA.

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Saturday, July 4, 2015

June 2015 Entry



June was, as predicted, had a few challenges. Definitely a trying month, but not full of low moments thankfully.

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- A lot of stuff came from Amazon on the first. I was just surprised that the 3 separate orders came together. All good stuff regardless.


- A rare weekend off of work (that I didn't know about until late) was given to the workers of HER. While I did still go to HER on Saturday for an hour, I did start reaching out to a few friends to hang out. The rest of that day was making plans for Sunday. The plan was for me to meet a friend in Austin for a couple hours and then continue driving to hang out with other friends in San Antonio and stay there over night. The morning of Sunday, the Austin part of plans got cancelled unfortunately. I still left at my original time for Austin, but just went straight to San Antonio instead on the 7th.

On the way there, I was listening/watching to the Royal Rumble 2010 PPV from the WWE Network. I was only able to watch the first half of it as my phone gave me a temperature warning (first time I ever saw it) that it was too hot, which it was. The rest of the drive was listening to music. It made the 3 hour drive alone easier.

I ended up at my friend's home and was immediately greeted by her two dogs (one was new to me). We spent time catching up and trying to figure out what to do. I threw out the idea of doing an escape room there, but we weren't thrilled about the high price...even though we ended up spending more at Top Golf (my first time doing that). Sure, I could have done Top Golf in Houston, but it was fun doing this with my friend. We actually dubbed the day a celebration of our 10 years of friendship similarly to how I celebrated 15 years of friendship last month. This included just doing random things and reliving past memories like when we used to date.


I did request that we stop by and meet with another friend of mine in San Antonio. She had not seen him in years and it was her first time meeting his son. They had a good time playing together while I caught up with my friend. We wish he and his wife could have joined us for dinner, but maybe some other time.

We went hunting for a Colombian restaurant she had never been to, but it was closed. So we picked up some Mexican food that wasn't too far away and went back home to eat and watch the latest adaptation of Annie (I enjoyed it). While we had plans to go out and do more stuff after watching Annie, we were tired. Most likely due to being outside for a few hours at Top Golf and the heat getting to us. It was okay. I was fine with just chilling and playing with her and her dogs.

While the dogs were fun, they didn't make going to sleep easy. They were both constantly moving around all night. It was topped off by the new one peeing next to me on the bed. That...was definitely a thing, ha.

I left the next morning. I did get teary eyed saying bye to the dogs and my friend. While we didn't do much, it was a much needed break from the norm that I needed. It was great being able to spend time with a great friend as well.


- The American Dream Dusty Rhodes passed away on the 11th. That was very unexpected. He looked like he still had more to offer. He did leave a great legacy and inspired many. He will definitely not be forgotten. 



- Adding more to the collection pile, I finally bought a copy of Aeon Flux. It arrived on the 17th. I haven't watched all the extras on it yet though.


- For the second year in a row, a friend of mine held Teacher KaraokaaaYYYY! Most of those invited were teachers in some way, which is why I was there. I didn't go up on stage to sing this time however. I was just in the mood to be around good people and sing at from the table. It was a damn fun night though. I was there from beginning to end with one other friend from 8:30PM to 2:00AM. It has been a while since I did something like that, ha. This was also the first time since I've started having Thursdays off at work that was actually a good Thursday. Very thankful for this fun night.

One thing that did happen is that another friend brought up how 3-5 years ago that I "had game" because I talked to this girl that looked like a Kpop star. He has brought this up every year we had gone to Spotlight. We actually did the investigative thing this time and "stalked" my friends on Facebook. I originally thought he was talking about one of my exes since she almost fit his description. But then it popped into my head with one other possibility that it could have been. Showed him a few pictures of her and we had our winner, another friend of mine slash another friend's sister, ha. It was a cool moment that reveled in finally figuring out who this mystery person was.


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- Got some new amiibo this month. First two to arrive (the 3rd) were Pac-Man and Ness. Next was Shulk (the 22nd). Unfortunately, while this was a great get, I got it on eBay...and at a higher price that I should not have paid. I'm glad I got it, but yeah...I won't ever pay too much for an amiibo no matter how much I want it.



- When I was in San Antonio, I picked a Majora's Mask pin that my friend got from buying Code Name S.T.E.A.M. He had meant to give it to me the last few times he came to Houston, but he would either forget or our schedules wouldn't work. but I have it now and it is cool.


- The new DLC for Smash Bros was announced on the 14th. While Roy and Ryu were leaked earlier, it was still awesome to see the official announcement. I downloaded them the next day as the first day had the eShop full of traffic as expected. I didn't play Lucas, Roy, and Ryu right away, but I did go through each character a day at a time. It was cool to play as Lucas and Roy again. Ryu is very interesting. It's weird and awesome to see him as a playable character in Smash. 


- In a fun surprise, Nintendo announced the release Earthbound Beginnings for the Wii U Virtual Console. It's basically the original NES Mother game under a new name since it was never released in the US. I downloaded it, but I'm not sure when or if I'll even get around to it. We'll see.


- E3 was fun to watch. Nintendo didn't show off a lot of stuff this year compared to last, but a few games made it to my "to buy" list especially a new list of amiibo that I want. You can read my impressions of their Digital Event with the proceeding link.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/838253259596009

- I also played and made a post on my impressions of the nine Nindie demos that were available during E3.

https://www.facebook.com/WingedVoX/posts/839285372826131

- The announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III were amazing. I really contemplated whether I should get a PS4 for at least Final Fantasy VII Remake. The reason I bought an original PSX was to play Final Fantasy VII so that would be a fitting set of circumstances.

- I have invested more time into Xenoblade Chronicles 3D this month. As of typing this, I'm at 38-40 hours. While I like it, I'd rather just watch the story now. I have hit a few points where I need to level up because my team wasn't strong enough, but unless it's critical to the story, I actually get tired doing some of the fights. But I am determined to beat the game within the next couple of months.


- At the beginning of the month, I used up my Club Nintendo coins to download 4 games; Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Super Mario Bros., and Super Mario Bros. 3. It was mainly for collection purposes, but I do plan to play and beat all of them. I did get Super Mario Land out of the way first towards the end of June. It took maybe...40 minutes to beat. I still enjoyed. It had been decades since I last played it on actual Game Boy so it was good to go back to and beat.


- I bought another game that was played on Game Informer's Super Replay, Raw Danger. It came in on the 29th. I do plan to get a few more games that were played on Super Replay, but some are really rare and expensive. Plus I really want my favorites that they played, not all of them.


- I've said it many times before, but it's more of a reality now. I have been pulling back on content for my WingedVoX gaming account. It's going to continue that way before it eventually fades in time.

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-  On the 2nd, I had to deal with an angry customer over email. To be fair though, I did screw up at one point and did have to hand it over for Agent Ro to finish. I got very flustered and felt like crap. We've dealt with tough customers over the phone, over email, and in person, but this was the first time I really felt like a screw up. Not fun...

- The first of new agents in training started on the second as well. He named himself Agent Tiny. He and I got along well especially since he was a fellow wrestling fan (we started doing New Day claps together, ha). He was able to pick up things pretty well, but his biggest fault was that he was slow on his speech. It was something I had to remind him about several times. The players' time and our time is precious so he needed to get that information out faster to them. Unfortunately, he did leave us after a couple weeks for a job he applied for before working at HER. He had the potential to be a really good facilitator, but we'll never know now.

- I had mentioned before that I have bad traffic incidents that make me late to work. There was one day in particular (06.03.15) in which it took 100 minutes for me to get to work...and almost the same amount of time going home. Had it just been going to work, that's fine. But hitting bad traffic on the way home, that sucked.

- We had our 1 Year Anniversary last month. During the beginning, we had a fun time answering questions from a hat and eating dinner. I actually put that video together for the agents to watch or listen to again if they wanted to on the 5th. It was a long video (over an hour). I didn't do any fancy editing (increased the volume mostly), but I did spend a good hour on 10-15 minutes into 15 seconds. I actually was pretty proud of that and think it looks cool. I doubt any of them got to see it though.

- Agent Ro ordered company shirts for all the agents. They're cool and comfortable. I want more of them and possibly different versions (like with the lock logo on the sleeve or back etc).


- We were going to have a corporate booking on a Monday (06.15.15). Unfortunately, there was a flash flood warning. And more unfortunate for me, I met the heavy rainfall as I was on my way to work. During that time, Agent Ro was calling me and the other agents that were to work that day and the corporate team about possibly cancelling as we don't want anyone to risk going out in the bad weather. I was stuck in the rain for about 90 minutes and even lost a windshield wiper along the way. But we had cancelled that session. I did end up going to HER though to talk and show some 3rd room stuff to Agent Ro. Agent Z and Agent Scarlet were able to show up to do some work as well and it was good to see them despite the bad circumstances of the rain. It wasn't that bad weather-wise towards the end, but at least I got to talk to Agent Ro a bit more before he left.


- The flood warnings continued onto the 16th. Those that were to work that day were assigned to call and email customers informing them that we would be closed and offer rescheduling. It wasn't that bad to do, but it is disappointing to have to change the plans of others especially if they planned way ahead of time.

- We gained an extra agent in training on the 18th. This also fell on Agent Yeti's birthday.

https://instagram.com/p/4GKgB5IXfw/

- And two days later, it was Agent Ro's birthday.


- I forget when she started because I wasn't there for it, but we gained another agent in training. She is one of Agent Audrey's friends so I had met her when they went through Grandma's room, but didn't officially meet her until July.

- In another string of unfortunate work incidents, our a/c had been acting up. On the 27th, it was completely down. We tried to keep operations running by installing fans in almost every area of the building as well as providing bottles of water for our customers. While the customers all had fun, most did comment that it was hot. It was decided towards the middle of our bookings that we were just going to cancel the rest of our sessions so that the rest of our customers and the staff wouldn't have to suffer in the heat. We spent time calling up the last half of our bookings letting them know we were going to reschedule or refund them due to the inconvenience. Once we got that out of the way, we started to close down as normal.

I ended up blurting out that we needed to go to one of our competitors (the newest one) and try one of their rooms now that we had the rest of the day off. Everyone agreed and we bought tickets for an 8:30 session. We all met up there all wearing our HER shirts (we all thought it would be funny). The owners of this escape room had been through ours and recognized us (I was actually their facilitator). They were actually just coming back from dinner and didn't know they had a booking since we booked last minute, ha. Just like any other time we go to another escape room, we were all taking mental notes on how they had things set up and how they were running their operations.

After a few minutes, we were lead into our escape room. We made it out with 9 minutes left (if I remember correctly). Afterwards, we went to Tiger Den to eat and talk about the room. It definitely was like a typical escape room, but we all liked it. Some things were done were pretty clever, some were blah. I think we all liked that this was a smaller room for up to 6 people at most with only 45 minutes.

So while the day started really hot and unpleasant, it ended on a fun high note. Yay, unexpected team building, ha. My record for escape rooms is now 5 wins and 2 losses.


- The next day, the a/c was still down. We were hoping it would be fixed, but we prepared ourselves just in case. We basically handled it like we did for floods by calling and emailing customers from home offering rescheduling and refunds. I'd say about half of the customers were understanding, but I had the unfortunate "honor" of being told how we "handled this terribly," "messed up their plans," and "ruined my daughter's 17th birthday," and maybe a few other things. It's not like we were doing this on purpose, but yeah...that's how some of them felt.

I was hoping to probably go out and do stuff that day, but the emails and phone calls needed to be monitored throughout the entire day. I was able to at least get a few hours of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D in between handling calls and emails. But yeah, an interesting "off" day to say the least.

- I wasn't there the day it actually happened, but we had the Houston Chronicle come in and write an article on HER. I posted it on our social media outlets on the 29th. Please take some time and read it as it is something we were really proud of.

With an account: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Escape-Room-brings-out-inner-Bond-MacGyver-6351406.php?cmpid=gsa-chron-result

Without an account: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqBFEsLDgGhd2FLaDdYSUx0Mjg/view

- On the 30th, we had another agent in training join the team. Not only that, it was the official last day of the Library Club as our Agent Audrey was going to leave at the beginning of July. In honor of this day, Library Club members brought books to recreate a past photo we made. Agent Yeti also went out and got us bbq to eat for dinner. We didn't have a last session (due to cancelling on account of the flash flood) so we had lots of time to celebrate. I don't recall exactly how it was brought up, but we started asking which agent we would let eat us. It was hilarious. It was then followed up by the question of who we thought tasted the best, ha. And thanks to the dinner conversation we had, the Cannibal Club was born. After dinner, we tried our best to recreate our previous Library Club photo and have it slowly morph into a Cannibal Club photo, ha.


- A lot of work has been done on the 3rd room. I'm very proud of what Agent Z and Agent Scarlet have done. Those two have been absolutely amazing. There was one day that I walked into the 3rd room in the morning and could not help but smile and be giddy at what I saw. I immediately texted Agent Z about it. Later in the day, I bought both of the girls macarons and expressed how proud and happy I was of them. I did invite them to Teacher KaraokaaaYYYY and offered to pay for the meal and drinks as a form of thanks, but they already had prior commitments. I will eventually treat them out because they deserve it. Thank you, Agents Z and Scarlet.   

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- One odd thing that happened over the past couple of months, any time I used the words "catch up" with someone, that ends the conversation and there is no follow up. I can recall that happening 4+ times with different people. It is very weird. I don't know what to do about it, but I can't always be the one attempting to reach out to try and stay connected. Sure, I left a lot of people over time and that was my choice, but I left the door open to keep contact with the ones I really cared about. 

- I didn't need it, but I bought the extra Kiss My Lips album card of BoA (06.17.15). I didn't know I needed it until I randomly searched for it on eBay. I have it now. I am happy that I have it.


- For those that don't know, Jessica of Girls' Generation was forced out of the group last year. On the 22nd, a version of the latest SNSD music video Catch Me If You Can with Jessica was leaked online. I actually enjoyed it and smiled watching it. I was inspired to make an mp3 of her version for myself. In doing that, I also felt the urge to blend the music videos together. I made two versions; one with the version of Jessica overlaid on the one officially released and the other showing one video directly over the other for a direct comparison. I ended up sharing it online on my WingedVoX accounts since those accounts were originally for videos I made and not just games.

Each video had close to 200 views before I was given my first ever copyright strike claim on YouTube on the 24th. I had to take watch a video and take a short quiz over copyright claims in order to just use my YouTube account at all. That strike will go away by the end of the year. They also removed my video, the one that was a comparison. The other just had a warning on it, but I decided to delete that one myself just in case I was handed another strike. My video actually got pulled down days before the originally leaked video finally got pulled down as well.

That strike really hurt. While I knew I was risking copyright issues, I really wanted to make these videos and share them with SONEs. I also got "yelled" at for sharing it on Soshified (they weren't allowing the leaked video to be posted anywhere and I didn't know that before sharing) when I thought they would like it and understand that I made it out of love for my favorite member of the group. It reminded me that I am far removed from that fan base. Even the ones I became friends with, I barely speak to anymore.  Since it was received well by few and I was given a strike, it reminded me of why I quit making videos for personal purposes. This reassured that I shouldn't make any videos for myself and just do it for work, which have been doing until now. It was actually about 2 years since I made a video for myself. So...I will go back to not making videos for myself (unless proper inspiration comes its way) and enjoying Kpop the way I used to and had been reverting back to. 

- On a lighter note of SNSD, they're having their comeback in July. They look fantastic.


- What do I expect from July? Not too sure. Only thing for sure is the 3rd room at HER. Other than that, I have little to no expectations of things happening. June was very up and down. I'm at least hoping for more ups in July.

Thanks for reading. Be healthy, be safe, be thankful, be bold, and be loved.



Take care. DFTBA.

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