Monday, June 12, 2017

May 2017 Entry

May 2017 Entry 

Sorry for the delay. I simply forgot. 

========================= 

- This year marks the first year in maybe a decade that I did not go to the Japan Festival (05.07). I asked a couple of friends who weren't able to go and then I actually ended up getting sick the day I wanted to go. It was a nice streak I had going, but it was disappointing not being able to go.  

- Still buying new snacks every month. This time around it was Cookies and Cream Oreos (05.09). While it is redundant, it actually did taste different from normal Oreos. Not super great, but not bad. 

- Another random karaoke outing (05.28). It's always fun. 
  

========================= 

- Finally got all gold trophies in Mario Kart 8 for all the cups (05.14). I was not able to 3 star all of 200cc though as that was tough. 200cc is crazy fast. I actually had to rethink how to race certain tracks. I liked the speed, but didn't find myself enjoying it. 150cc is a good speed. 

- Got around to playing and beating BOXBOXBOY! (05.15). Similar to BOXBOY, I beat it in one sitting (with the help of an online guide). More of the same for a sequel. At some point I will play and beat the last game in the series. 


- My amiibo count is now 80 (05.19). The Alm & Celica amiibo from Fire Emblem are really good looking. Despite not playing the game, they are some of my favorite looking amiibo that are around. 

- Picked up Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers (05.26). It was cool to finally play a version of HD Remix. I tried all versions of control types and found myself liking the Pro Controller more. Weirdly I would use analog for charge characters and d-pad for non-charge characters. I made sure to beat the arcade mode with 2 characters a day and finally beat it with all of them in the beginning of June (06.04). Way of the Hado Mode...no thanks. 

- Tried out the ARMS Global Testpunch when it was running and I was free (05.28). The game works well, but I was not good at it. Got beat a lot. But I definitely got a similar vibe from when I played Splatoon's Global Splatfest. I think it will be popular and find an audience that will champion it.  

========================= 

- Another monthly meeting (05.02). We played Man Overboard for our activity. It was fun, but didn't last long as not too many people stuck around. 

- There are few families that come through HER that leave a great memory for me. A Colombian Family came through as I was training one of our trainees (05.05). Similar to another family I enjoyed, the grandmother was adorable. She always looked to us to help her and whenever she found anything, she would wildly exclaim it to her family. All around, they were fun. It was only after did I find out they were Colombian. That's when we started talking about my trip there and they recommended places to get good Colombian food in Houston. I immediately texted my best friend and she was happy about it.  

- We had another surprise wedding proposal (05.06). This one was definitely different as the proposer was not communicating a lot with us beforehand since he was from another city. We tried to get a friend of his to come by to check out the place and to give us the ring. None of that happened. We only knew who the persons involved were the day of and had to get things ready with little knowledge. Regardless, it went off fine. The proposer was incredibly nervous and was sweating a lot as the game went on. Even when it got to the scripted part of the proposal, he couldn't read what he was supposed and just asked "will you marry me." It was funny since the proposee was yanking the paper from him and was about to cuss him out as he was mustering the strength. Congratulations. 

- Our break room got a new coat of paint as well as some reorganizing (05.17). I actually did not take part in it. I knew I would just get messy and mess things up. So I took on the task of doing everything else to make sure our operations were still ready to go. The team did a great job. 

That same day, I also cleaned out our glue gun. It was not functioning and was actually clogged up. It took a long time to do. 

- We celebrated our 3rd Year Anniversary (05.19). We had food catered from Pappa's before all our activities took place. Our annual activity of writing questions and pulling them out of a hat happened. Shortly after that was time for my activity. I had been telling everyone that I was bringing a guest speaker. A lot had been asking about who it was and I could tell that some were not interested in listening to speaker. But that was all a rouse. I received calls from the "guest speakers" when they were walking to the building. I let them in and they relaxed in the lobby for a minute before I introduced them. To everyone's surprise, my "guest speakers" were Petite Porkers and they brought 2 piglets for us to have a piggy date for an hour. I've watched the video captured during that moment multiple times just to see and hear all the reactions as it happened. Everyone enjoyed their time with Charley and Sterling. 


After that, Agents Raynor and Majordomo had a game for us to play. Can't go into the details about it, but it was interesting. Then the last leg of our celebration was at Main Event. We played a lot of games; laser tag, bowling, pool, shuffle board, mini golf, and some arcade games. Very fun way to end the night and our anniversary. 

- We made a trade for some Astros tickets (05.22). Myself and Agents Yeti, Voxel, Incognito, Ca$h, and one of our Agents In Training all went. Some of us brought a guest. My friend and I went around the stadium to check things out. It had been a while since either of us had been to a baseball game. The Astros did score during our go around and that's all that happened, ha. Despite the low score, I had fun. 

- Had a little fun with our like/comment Instagram post (05.25). 

- To help drum up more activity on our social media, I posted an image that would reward the HER Community with an exclusive video if we received 25 Likes. We cheated a little and combined Likes from Instagram and Facebook. But the video of what happened to Agent Mo went live (05.27). Amazingly, it is now our most viewed Instagram video. It received over a hundred views in a few days. Proud of that accomplishment. 

- Last month we had 2 new Agents In Training. We actually brought one more aboard. Not only that, the first one completed training and is now known as Agent Blue Heeler.

- And our monthly blog post was penned by Agent Blue. 

========================= 

- SISTAR - Lonely (MV) 


It was disappointing to see SISTAR disband. They were always a fun group. At least they ending things on good terms. Their last week of performances were all great. 

- TWICE - Signal (MV) 


I'll admit, I did not like Signal that much at first. I'm usually like that especially with groups I'm more invested in. But I started to like it more as I saw more performances. 

Really enjoyed seeing them on more variety shows too. I wish they did more during their Knock Knock promotions, but this was better than nothing. Their appearances on Weekly Idol were so fun. 


- And that is it for May. Sorry for posting the update late. Being busy and tired is an interesting combination. Thank you for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Monday, May 8, 2017

April 2017 Entry

April 2017 Entry 

Seems like a lot happened in the month of April. Before recapping things and making bullet points, I thought that not much didn't happen. 

========================= 

- Caught up on NXT TakeOver: Orlando (04.02). Great wrestling all around. My predictions were almost all wrong, ha.  

Made sure to finish all of it before Wrestlemania 33 started. Unfortunately, I missed the first 2 hours of the show due to the internet going out literally minutes before the show started. I did stay up to watch what I missed. The show of shows was definitely fun to watch. The Hardy Boyz returning was wonderful. The Undertaker's last match was not his greatest, but it was a sight to see him go out the way that he did. Thank you, Undertaker.   

 

- New snack of the month were Jaffa Cakes (04.06). Searched for them after watching Teens React to different types of snacks. Jaffa Cakes were interesting. The combination of orange and chocolate would not be one I normally be into. It took 2 of the cakes to convince me that I liked them. 
 

- The latest Death Battle was Power Rangers VS Voltron (04.12). I brought it up to a few friends and I was on the losing end of the battle. I don't recall my record for Death Battle predictions, but I know I've been wrong more than half the time. As long as the fights are interesting, I'm fine. 
 

- I had an anxiety attack (04.14). It had been a long time since I had one. I woke up around 3AM feeling it, which was also different from any other time. I tried all my normal methods of calming down and going back to sleep. After about an hour, I asked my mom for help. Can't really pinpoint how this one happened either.  

- Spent Easter at my cousin on my dad's side (04.16). I don't recall the last time I spent Easter with the family. It was fun. Lots of food, games, and laughs. It was cool seeing how they have celebrated Easter for years (confetti eggs and Easter egg hunt). I was very delighted that the 1-2-Switch was a big hit among the majority of the party-goers. Quick Draw was the most popular, but we did play a fair amount of the games available. Once more of the kids left, the remainder of cousins played Quiplash 3. Hilarious horrible fun. 

As I was leaving, I did take the time to thank my cousin for always inviting me to these parties. Basically, I had felt a little disconnected from the family for a while and her always texting me whenever something was going on helped quell those feelings. Talked a few more family related things, but I do appreciate her and her husband being excellent hosts.  
 

- Got my tax return (04.17). My family went to someone new this year. A few days prior, my parents were "in line" for almost a whole day (coming home around 4-5AM). And then we had to meet the guy at a gas station instead of an office...it was all weird. To cap it off, my tax return was $60...minus $50 for his service...so I got $10 this year. Yeah...lame. For some reason, I felt better last year when I owed about a grand. 

Met up with my cousin and her husband and son that same day for dinner before they headed back to Corpus Christi. It was interesting to be around only them as there is usually a party or celebration involved. I spent a good amount of time walking along with their son to keep him entertained so that the parents could have some time to relax and eat. 

- Teen Titans: The Judas Contract is a great movie (04.18). It is the second DC animated movie to make me tear up. Every bit of it was good and I highly recommend it. 
 

========================= 

- Spent a lot of March playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 120 Shrines beat (04.03), all sidequests completed (04.07), and then finally beating the game (04.09). A phenomenal adventure from start to finish. I haven't thought about where exactly it sits in my list of favorite Zelda games, but it is safe to say it is in the top 5. I haven't touched the game after beating it (over 120 hours worth of game play), but I can't wait to return to it when the DLC comes out. 
 
 

- Before beating BotW, I went to the Zelda themed escape room; Defenders of the Triforce (04.09). It was myself, Agent Blue, and Agent Gig and his girlfriend. We were joined by 2 others to form a team of 6. They had never done an escape room before, but they were big Zelda fans. There were a lot of people there. I think there were close to 30 teams of 6 (180+ people). When everything started, we were actually the front-runners for about half an hour. Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete the quest. One roadblock really got us. My escape room record is now 16 escapes out of 21 rooms.  

Overall, I did not enjoy it. I liked some of the production that was in place, but I definitely had more negatives about the experience. The biggest thing was that there were so many people. We're all doing the same thing so that meant waiting in line for others to finish whether they were right or wrong in their answers. It really was a main factor in the end as the majority were in line for the final area. Not only that, but the worker was quickly shooing people away if they were wrong. It also did not help that not all our final puzzle pieces worked/revealed themselves. For the puzzles being paper puzzles, they were fine. But this would have been way better if it were one room and without others involved other than your team. 

The cost definitely was not worth it. As a big fan of Zelda and escape rooms, I was disappointed. 


- A new Nintendo Direct (04.12). My biggest takeaways were all the amiibo announced. I also purchased Bye Bye BoxBoy since it was released. 
 

- Speaking of amiibo, I gained 3 more (04.17). There was a 3 for $20 deal at Toys R Us so I ordered a few I did not have yet; Villager, Palutena, and Captain Falcon. 
 

- I downloaded Graceful Explosion Machine when it became available. I started it on the 10th (told myself I wouldn't start it until I beat Breath of the Wild). I didn't get into this one hardcore as I was trying to catch up on other things. But I did beat it on the 23rd. I did enjoy it. There was one level (3-2) that was giving me a lot of trouble as the difficulty spiked. Definitely a sense of challenge. I would recommend trying it out. 
 

- And on the same day I beat GEM, I started and beat Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (04.23). One of the main reasons I beat it quickly was because Game Grumps were doing a playthrough and I did not want anything spoiled yet. I downloaded this the day it came out, but didn't touch it until BotW was beat. Specter of Torment was fantastic. After my playthrough, I had 93% of the game complete. Between this, Plague of Shadows, and the original Shovel Knight, I don't know which one I like better. They all play differently and were all great. Highly recommend any and all of them to anyone. 
 

- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is out (04.28). While I was hesitant jumping back in to a game I had already played a lot on the Wii U, I found myself coming back to this game a lot ever since it came out. I did not play it every spare hour I had like I did with Breath of the Wild, but I have been coming back to it when I did have free time. I started with 50cc with the goal to 3 star all the cups before moving up. As of typing this (05.08), I am 3 stars on 4 cups in 200cc. 200cc is crazy. Definitely have to play differently. So much fun though. 
  

========================= 

- Another month, another monthly meeting (04.04). This was the final meeting for Agent Pow-Poper whose actual final day was the previous Saturday. 
 

- We hired a new Agent In Training (04.07). She actually came as a customer first and she and I talked before her session about how we were hiring. So while she was going through Mo's Safehouse, I was actually observing her as if this was part of the interview process. A few days later, she actually came in for an interview. Shortly after, she started. It had been a while since I trained anyone so the shift in my work load and sessions load has increased.  

- We've done our share of special request events such as a pregnancy reveal and wedding proposals. But we had our first gender reveal (04.15). The main request made was that if the team did not escape, we would not reveal the gender, ha. I don't think we would have let it go down that way. The family was all dressed in blue or pink based on what they thought the gender would be. In the end, they escaped and Agent Coda and I were on hand as they found out that it was a boy. That was an amazing moment to be part of. 
 

- We weren't through with Agents In Training. A second one was brought on board (04.28). He was actually one of the coordinators for GoGames360, the gaming event we participated in earlier in the year. Things didn't turn out well with them so he was seeking employment elsewhere.  

- This month's blog post was created by Agent Solaire. 


- I know that more happened, but the main thing that took a lot of my focus were all the interviews we conducted. This has to be the most we have ever done in a short span of time. The most in a day; 3. The most in a week; 5. I actually started to lose my voice at one point from doing so many. Unfortunately, a lot of them were not that great. There was one time I cut the interview short and I had never done that before. I've always been picky, but Ihave been more so lately. Hopefully we'll bring on 1-2 more sooner rather than later. 

========================= 

- TaeYeon - Make Me Love You (MV) 

Her album has been pretty decent. 

- BoA - Spring Rain (MV) 


Continues to amaze me. 

- And that is it for April. I feel like I actually forgot a lot of the month as I was recapping things even though a lot happened. Oh well. Thank you for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 
 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Monday, April 17, 2017

March 2017 Entry

March 2017 Entry 

Apologies for the lateness of this post. The main reason was because of Breath of the Wild, plain and simple. 

========================= 

- I got sick (03.08). Don't know where it came from, but I knew I wasn't feeling too great the day prior. Ended up being sick from work that day and the next and I didn't play with the Switch during that time. You know I'm not feeling good if I can't play games, ha. I used to be able to when I was younger. This time I spent the majority of these 2 days trying to rest.  

- Coming home from work, I found my room rearranged (03.11). I did not like that. It has happened a few times in the past and every time I had a great disliking for it. Mainly it is because things get moved around to where I can't find them and that some of the electronics and their cords are haphazardly moved around.  

- My copies of TaeYeon's My Voice came in (03.24). As I listened to the album more, the more I liked it. I did not like that they announced another edition shortly after with a few extra songs. I decided to skip on that.  


- I bought myself a pair of Survivor Series tickets (03.27). Apparently they had been on sale for a few months, but I never received an email about it. I only knew due to a local ad that appeared on RAW. As soon as I saw it, I went online and bought them.  

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- I purchased a Nintendo Switch (03.03). My friend code is SW-2392-2282-4630.  


I took a day off from work so that I could be part of the midnight opening the night prior. After work on Thursday, I arrived at my local GameStop about a quarter before midnight. There were others there already. I came in to pay off my purchases and got my receipt. We were shortly asked to exit the store and line up so they could get all the orders ready. I was 6th in line. There were also a few additional people that were waiting that didn't making a preorder. I believe the company had 3-5 extra Switches to sell. During the wait, one of the employees came out to ask Switch and Zelda related questions to give away prizes. I knew most of the answers, but only got one prize, a Breath of the Wild pin. Once midnight rolled around, they started letting us in one at a time to pick up our orders. If there was a prize for walking out with the most stuff, I would have won, ha. I had the Switch itself, 1-2-Switch, all 5 Breath of the Wild amiibo, and the Collector's Edition of Breath of the Wild (which was a larger box than the Switch). Got home and set up all the settings. I didn't play any games because I knew I would just be tired.   

My amiibo collection is now at 75 thanks to the Breath of the Wild set.  


I did get some stuff that I ordered online (that I could have bought in store). A Pro Controller, which is a really good controller, and a blue set of Joy-Cons. The blue ones will only be used by me at home and the grey ones can be used by others. I might end up buying a set of red ones, but that would be further down the road. 

And I post all my pictures on Facebook and Twitter. 

- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took over my life for March. I can't remember the last game that made me want to play it any time I had any free time (before work, after work, days off). There was actually one day that I forgot to take a shower before work because I was trying to complete a few shrines that took longer than I thought (03.17). That has never happened before, ha.  

I'll admit that I did feel lost the first couple days of playing. I would lose track of the main quest and just keep going. Being able to go anywhere made every place seem different. Walking through an area would seem different because I chose to climb a mountain instead. It really did take me a while to get used to knowing my environment and know my limitations. But once I figured it out, I was fine (except for a few careless mistakes). 

That's when I realized that I probably would not play the game a second time. There is so much to do that I figured I would do a compleitionist run instead of second run. I maxed out my stamina first (03.20) and then I completed 100 shrines (03.26). I thought that would be enough. Once I saw the numbers of shrines and sidequests, I did decided to complete those. The only thing I thought that I could pass on was collecting all the Korok seeds (that might be something I choose to go back to though). So my time in March was very much dedicated to getting lost in this version of Hyrule. Did I beat it in March? No. Did I beat it in April? Find out next entry. 
 

========================= 

- We released our Spanish Testimonials video (02.28). We have had Mo's Safehouse available completely in Spanish for a while now, but we need more bookings for it. So if you know anyone that are native Spanish speakers, this may be for them. 
 

- Another monthly meeting occurred (03.07). For the activity, I brought my new Switch for the team to play 1-2-Switch. That was fun seeing all of us do silly things. 
 

- After being sick for a couple days, I went in back to work (03.10). Unfortunately, a lot of bad things happened that day. The main thing that we were doing was revamping The Scarlet Scam to be easier for us. After a week of work, it was reopened...and it was a mess. I was not part of the process in the revamp, but the situation was not handled well. Agent Ca$h had the first session and had to ask for a lot of help because things were not reset properly and some of the new things were not tested. I had the second session and I was so mad. It did not help that the group of kids I had were not the best group and I wanted to kick them out. 

An email thread was sent to discuss how this reopening was disappointing. A few days later, I could not sleep because all I could think about was how horrible the room had become. I wrote a long email at 4AM pointing out what was wrong and requesting for changes. Gradually, all those things were addressed, but the room itself is still not what it used to be. While some of the changes made have been beneficial, I still question why some were made such as repainting the room from black to white. The room works, but other than the hard wiring and a new computer, I don't think anything else needed to be done. This whole ordeal made me not like that room for a while. I actually do not claim that I was the person behind designing that room. It was just horrible to see something I was a big part of to being out of my hands to going to a state of disappointment to what it had become.  

- We are hiring (03.13). More rooms and more sessions means we need more facilitators. If you or someone you know needs a job, pass the information along. Doesn't guarantee them a job because I am picky about who we hire. The times we have let go of staff, I was very adamant about doing so.  


- To help promote our Spanish Testimonials video and Spanish sessions in general, we had our first Facebook Live done mostly in Spanish. The Spanish stopped when we brought in more facilitators to play Macho Nacho (03.21). Basically one person would not be able to use their hands. Their partner would act as their arms and feed them nachos. It was funny to watch. 
 

- And I wrote the monthly blog for March 2017. 


========================= 

- Girl's Day - I'll Be Yours (MV) 

This isn't my favorite song by Girl's Day. The song is okay, but it never hooked me. 

- Red Velvet - Would U (MV) 

Not a bad song. I sure did enjoy the video since it was centered around Irene. 

- SNSD - Beautiful Restriction 

This song came up on my iPod randomly. Had not heard it for a long time so I searched for the video to relive it. 

- That does it for March. Apologies again for the late write up. Saving the world takes time. Thank you for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Friday, March 3, 2017

February 2017 Entry

February 2017 Entry

Welcome to the entry for February 2017. Seems like it will be a short one for the shortest month of the year. 

========================= 

- Met up with high school friends at Honey Art Cafe (02.12). Picked up one friend on the way there and unfortunately took an unintentional wrong route and missing the place. Ended up being over half an hour late...but they were forgiving. Friend was there with her baby and her brother plus his girlfriend. None of them had been there before and they all enjoyed it. It was good catching up with each other and trying to control the 2-year old, ha. 

After we split, my friend and I wanted to continue talking. So we went to Twistee Treat. There was one near our homes and I only noticed the building a week prior so I was curious. I already had ice cream at Honey Art Cafe so I got a green apple slushy. It was alright. Next time I go there, I'll try their ice cream. We stayed out there until close to midnight talking about more stuff before dropping her back home. 


- Since I was out with friends the night prior, I missed out on the Elimination Chamber. But I stayed up late to catch up on all of it (02.13). I was wrong on all except one of my predictions, ha. It's all good though as it was still exciting. Congratulations to the new WWE Champion, Bray Wyatt.  

- I wasn't too impressed with Justice League Dark (02.13). In the end, it could have just been a Constantine movie with cameos from the Justice League. I wouldn't say it could have been a Batman movie either despite him being in it more than the rest of the Justice League members. Probably my favorite part was seeing a new version of the Toxic Avenger. Other than that, I don't recommend watching this one. I am looking forward to Teen Titans: The Judas Contract. 
  



- Caught with a friend (02.27) after randomly messaging her. We had a tough time figuring out where to eat, but ended up going to the new Ramen Tatsu-ya that opened. Met her there and it was her first time ever having ramen. She enjoyed it. I would say it's some of the best ramen in Houston. Afterwards, she suggested we go to Amorino for ice nicely shaped ice cream. That was tasty. Unfortunately, most of mine melted all over my hand as we ate outside. Still good though. Highly recommend both places. It was good catching up with her and hopefully we'll get to hang out more. 



========================= 

- After randomly watching an old episode of Game Informer's Replay, I decided to watch all of the cut scenes from the Xenosaga series. 7 hours and 9 minutes for the first one (02.12), 4 hours and 28 minutes for the second one (02.17), and 8 hours and 43 minutes for the third one (02.27). That's about 20 hours worth or cut scenes. I remembered quite a bit from the first game, very little of the second game, and everything in the third game was new to me since I never played it. Crazy how twisted and deep the story gets. There's so much exposition. Hard to believe there was actually gameplay in between all of these scenes. 

- I went to reserve the Breath of the Wild amiibo and also picked up 2 that I had not picked up right away. Those amiibo were Robin and Poochy (02.09). Now I have all of the Fire Emblem amiibo currently out and all of the Yarn Yoshi ones minus the Mega sized one. 


- Affordable Space Adventures was a game I got from a Humble Bundle. I had meant to play it way earlier, but kept putting it off until recently (02.19). It was alright. I think it would have been interesting to play with 2 others as it had a rich cooperative component attached to it. Doing everything by yourself was a little tough at times. I did have to watch a few YouTube videos to figure out how to complete some levels though. I don't think it's a must have, but if you know someone that has it, try it out. 


- Similar to Affordable Space Adventures, I meant to get to Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins earlier (02.26). I definitely see why people like this game. Controls well and had a fair amount of challenge in it. Glad I can check this one off the list finally. 


========================= 

- Our Valentine's Video went up the same day as the Super Bowl (02.03). It was fun doing something a little different video-wise. And while I did not facilitate any of our Valentine's sessions, I heard it went off quite well. Hopefully this leads to more themed rooms in the future. 


- Another monthly meeting (02.07). This time, I had to lead the whole meeting due to the rest of management not being available. It was interesting, but I definitely have my own way of doing things. And we were supposed to play Munchkins for our company activity, but Agent Yeti wasn't there nor did she leave the game to play. So we played JackBox games again this time with more people. It was hilarious. 

- Did some painting two days in a row (02.08). I'm not the best at it, but I enjoy doing it. I definitely made a mess of my hands and my pants, ha. 



- We had been in talks with GoGames360 about joining their convention. Those talks happened months ago and we agreed to it. Finally, the event happened (02.10-02.12). We brought out puzzle booths to show off what kind of puzzles we offer and we brought a lot of games and shirts to sell. 

Our time there wasn't the smoothest. The first day, a couple of booths did not function. Not only that, but the turnout was low. The second day was better as all the booths were working. But we were having staffing issues there and at HQ. Basically, we needed one extra person at GoGames360 and HQ needed 1-2 of us to go back there since staff members were sick. To top things off, I was half an hour late due to heavy traffic and horrible rerouting. When I finally got there, I let Agent Majordomo and PQ what was going on and asked them to leave the event earlier than planned to go to HQ. And we still had to ask Agent Ocean's girlfriend to help us since we couldn't get anyone else to join myself and Agent Ocean at GoGames360. The rest of the day was okay. I wasn't there for the third day, but I heard there was significantly less people there. 

Overall, not the best experience. It's good that we got the exposure, but I wouldn't consider this outing a success. Definitely good for a learning experience for any future events we do with anyone else. 

========================= 

- Ailee - Reminiscing (MV) 

- TaeYeon - I Got Love (MV) 

TaeYeon - Fine (MV) 

I have enjoyed all of TaeYeon's solo songs. Her latest album hasn't completely grabbed my attention yet, but I'm sure after I listen to it more, I'll like it as well.

- Twice - Knock Knock (MV) 



Knock Knock didn't immediately resonate with me. It did take watching their comeback performances to get me to like it. I still don't find it as catchy as their previous singles, but it's good. Well, I know I like it since I've been unconsciously learning the dance for it, ha. 

- The last couple weeks of the month have not been stellar. Something at work would happen, something at home would happen, something online would happen...it was one thing day after day. It got to the point that I could not hide it and I knew I was not pleasant to be around. Even he last day of the work week had one of the most unexpected incidents occur. I was so relieved once that day was over. Rather than dwell on it more, I'm going to put it behind me and just look forward to better things. 

- That's it for this month. A short month with a lot of bad things happening. I'm ready for March, I'm ready for the Nintendo Switch, and I'm ready for Breath of the Wild. Thank you for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved.


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

January 2017 Entry


January 2017 Entry 

The new year has begun and we're one month in. 

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- I don't recall when I started doing this, but I'm buying snacks once a month. This time I ordered honey roasted peanuts and ttekbokki chips (01.05). Something old and something new. To this date (02.07.17), I have only finished one of the peanut containers. The tteokbokki chips were good, but more sweet than spicy. 


- My copy of Jessica's Wonderland came in (01.09). It's alright. I prefer her first single more. 
 

- Went into work in the morning for a long meeting. Due to that, I was able to arrange meeting up with a dear friend afterwards (01.10). We went to Kitchen 713 for dinner. Neither of us had been there and it was great. Large food portions and all that we had was delicious. Then we went to Honey Art Cafe for dessert. That place is amazing. Not only is their food good, but their whole business caught my attention. There's art everywhere that they made, stuff on tables for customers to make art, and there was even an art class being held in the back of the complex. Highly recommend both places for anyone. 
 

- Bought tickets for NXT Live in Houston (01.26). Since I knew I couldn't go to TakeOver a few days after in San Antonio, I could not miss this show. My original friend I invited cancelled a few days before, but I another close friend was able to take his place. 

Elias Samson VS No Way Jose 
Sanity VS Cedric Alexander and Heavy Machinery 
Roderick Strong VS Wesley Blake 
The Revival VS DIY 
Nikki Cross VS Billie Kay VS Peyton Royce VS Asuka 
Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode VS Tye Dillinger, Shinsuke Nakamura 

All the matches were fun to watch and full of chants. Highlights for me were Asuka looking directly at me (had my NXT title with all her masks on it), chanting Joe and 10, and singing to Roode and Nakamura's themes. 

I did watch TakeOver the day after it aired. Fantastic show as expected. Wish I could have been there, but it was very enjoyable. 
 

- I had bought my tickets for Royal Rumble in San Antonio as soon as I could (01.30). The Royal Rumble was one match I've always wanted to see in person so I could not miss on it being only hours away from Houston. Originally was going to go with cousins I used to watch wrestling with as we grew up. One of them had to back out a few days before the event so I got the same friend that went to NXT Live with me to enjoy the other ticket (he was already in San Antonio for PAX South). 

On the way to San Antonio and back, my cousin and I were catching up. Talked a lot about wrestling and video games. It was good catching up with him. 

We arrived in San Antonio around 4PM and already saw traffic heading to the Alamo Dome. While we had planned to possibly eat beforehand, we ended up walking to the venue after finding parking. Texted my friend to meet us there and we waited. Got a lot of people complimenting me on my Rated R belt. Once my friend joined us, it was into the stadium we went. We had already missed one of the preshow matches and came in for the end of the second preshow match. At least we made it in time to see the final preshow match with Sasha Banks. I never got to see her perform live until that night. And then seeing Shawn Michaels was cool. 

A couple things did suck during the event. One horrible thing to note is that the staff at the Alamo Dome was bad. They numbered the chairs incorrectly. So some of the staff were telling us it was okay to just sit in our row, but not our seat. We had good seats until we were forced to move. That staff member then ignored us and didn't even help us to our actual seats. You could see fans still being moved around well into the Owens/Reigns match. 

The other thing was that later during Styles/Cena, a fan refused to sit down even though a bunch of us asked/yelled at him to. He wouldn't even listen to the staff and police had to be brought in to at least talk to him. It really was all about common courtesy and etiquette. We all paid to be there, no one is more entitled than anyone else. You sit down so those behind you can see. Stand up for the good stuff, but also know when to sit back down and not be in anyone's way. 

Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella, Naomi VS Alexa Bliss, Natalya, Mickie James 
The Club VS Cesaro, Sheamus 
Sasha Banks VS Nia Jax 

Bayley VS Charlotte 
The match was as good as I thought it would be. Definitely not the end for these 2. 

Kevin Owens VS Roman Reigns 
Intense match. Lots of hard hits from both men. 

Neville VS Rich Swann 
Fun to watch, but not super exciting. Neville is fantastic. 

AJ Styles VS John Cena 
Emotionally charged. Definitely match of the night. Very surprised that Cena won the title to tie Ric Flair's record, but he deserves it.  

Royal Rumble Match 
They weren't kidding when they say that's the fastest hour because time flew. After someone joined the Rumble, it wasn't long before we all stood up to countdown from 10 again. From where we were sitting, we couldn't see the golf cart driving some of the competitors down to the ring. We would just see them zoom really fast and it was funny, ha. 

Some highlights include chanting 10 for Tye Dillinger, Baron Corbin eliminating Braun Strowman, Brock Lesnar destroying people, Goldberg swiftly getting rid of Lesnar, Undertaker appearing in the ring, and Roman Reigns being number 30. The reaction he got was incredible to be a part of. When he eliminated the Undertaker, I stood up on my chair and flicked him off, ha. Orton winning was surprising and it did make everyone happy. 

To cap off the night, we were 3-5 rows away from the special Royal Rumble seats that fans could take home. An enthusiastic fan in front of us managed to get 2 of them. She was having trouble getting them over her row so I offered to help. She gave me a look, but I really was going to help. She ended up giving me one of them. I was trying to give it back, but she insisted. Now that I had a chair, I had to get it checked. Got in line with others (not handled well by the staff). While waiting, I looked around and noticed well-known child superfan Izzy. I yelled out "Izzy" and got her and her parents' attention and waved at them. I think I asked if she enjoyed the show. Then I asked "do you want a chair?" The dad laughed and asked how much. I shook my head and held it up to them to take. They were in shock because the dad was actually going to ask around and buy someone's chair if he could. I stated that they were pretty much doing what I would do if I had a kid. The dad asked if there was anything they could do for me so I asked for a picture. We walked over to each other, I shook the parents' hands, and got a hug from Izzy. I noticed Izzy had the RAW Women's title so I told her I had the Smackdown one at home. Got my friend to take a picture of us. Then I told Izzy to stick with wrestling because she's going to have a lot of fun watching it. I gave my ticket to the dad since staff was checking to make sure certain priced ticket holders were walking out with the chairs. The family thanked me again. And that was how I will "Remember the Rumble." 
 


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- Been going through my backlog of games. This has been a pretty active month of gaming. 

Shantae:Half-Genie Hero (01.01) 
Definitely enjoy this series. Half-Genie Hero was very polished. I did think there could have been more, but what was there was more than enough. Just like with the other Shantae games (except the first one), I did a 100% run. Can't wait for the DLC to come out. 


3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (01.16) 
It was fun playing my favorite 2D Sonic game after so long. I did use the save states for when I was doing the bonus stages for Chaos Emeralds. Everything else was muscle memory after a while. 
 

BoxBoy! (01.23) 
With a discount via My Nintendo and an impending amiibo coming soon, I decided to give the first BoxBoy game a try. Simple puzzle game to understand, but I definitely needed help solving puzzles towards the latter part of the adventure. I enjoyed and look to pick up the second game and the one after that is coming with the amiibo. 


- The Nintendo Switch presentation happened (01.12). It did what I knew it would do and get me excited even more so for the system. The day after the presentation, I made sure to go to my local GameStop to reserve one. I think I was 12th or 13th in line and they only had 26. Along with the system, I reserved Zelda BotW, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Mario Odyssey. Soon thereafter, I also preordered an extra set of Joy-Cons, a screen protector, Sonic Mania, and a Pro Controller. There are more games I plan to get (Ultra Street Fighter II, JackboxTV 3, etc), but I'm waiting for release dates.   
 

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- Throughout the month, I conducted evaluations for staff members along with Agent Majordomo. It was good to connect with the staff to let them know of what they are great at and what they can improve on. 

- Another month, another meeting (01.03). Or after meeting activity was playing JackBoxTV games. So much fun. 
 

- Our fourth escape room, Dark Side of the Moon officially launched (01.11). Got an awesome trailer to help promote it. 
 

- We're collaborating with GoGames360 for an event in February. Lots of work have been put in leading up to the event, but it will be worth it. You'll read more about that next month after the event happens. 
 

- We now offer Special Events, which is a way to enhance the experience. Have a birthday coming up? You can get a shirt and a game to go along with your session. This was also a good way to put other special sessions we've done in the past (pregnancy reveal, surprise wedding proposals, etc) into a category that we offer. People are liking it so it's a success. 
 

- I fell off a large set piece that is in one of our escape rooms (01.20). I have climbed up and and down it many times over a year plus, but this one time I happened to get caught as I came down. I felt things crack in my right ankle and and hit the floor hard (also damaged a prop). Took me a while to get up and other staff members were getting ice for me, but I didn't need it. I was worried I did break something, but it was definitely just strained (even though I felt things crack). And then I only found out a couple days later that I had a bruise on my left hip from when I hit the floor. I was fine a few days later and have climbed that set piece many times since then.   

- One of our biggest deals for customers is happening right now. For the month of February, pairs of tickets bought for Tuesday-Thursday sessions are BOGOF. Tell everyone you know because we don't offer many deals like this all the time. 
 

- Agent Voxel is our latest artist for our chalk art wall (01.28). He did a terrific job. It was great to see him be excited about the project and tackle it. 
 

- And our monthly blog was written (with haikus) by Agent Pow-Poper.  

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- SeoHyun - Don't Say No (MV) 

It is great to see how SeoHyun has evolved. Unfortunately, I have decided to pass on buying her album. I know I would have bought one for HyoYeon had she released one.  

- Red Velvet - Rookie (MV) 

Honestly not my favorite song that they've done. I do enjoy their performances, but the song itself isn't one of their best. 

- SES - Paradise (MV) 
 


It still amazes me to see new SES content. Not only that, but to be buying a new album from them, wow. The album is fantastic. Definitely one of their best. 

- A recent tweet from GameAttack resonated with me (01.16). I did share it with coworkers and it did hit them as well.  


- Reading the news of BoA dating...I'll admit that I was crushed (01.17). However, it doesn't surprise me that she is (or ever has) because she is a catch. She does deserve that type of happiness in her life. I've supported her throughout her career and I can definitely suport her in her personal life. Congratulations, BoA.   

- And that's the end of this month's entry. January went by quickly. I'm actually surprised so much happened this month. As usual, thanks for reading. Be healthy, safe, thankful, and loved. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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