Random Update 1-22-15

On 01/22/2015 at 10:58 AM by Ranger1

Good morning, Pixlbit Nation! How is everyone this lovely Thursday? I am fantastic, after being so poor I couldn't afford coffee for the last two weeks, my first unemployment check came in yesterday and I went food shopping. My larder is no longer bare, and I am once again caffeinated. Life is good.

I also went to visit my friends with the farm yesterday. They're down to four cows, five pigs, seven or eight guinea fowl, and the egg-laying chickens. One of the young bulls will be leaving, whether they sell him or he goes to the butcher is still up in the air. The other will hopefully be their stud bull when he's a little older. The pigs consist of three sows, one is going to live elsewhere, and two boars, one is the current stud boar and the other is the future stud boar. Henry is the name of the young boar and he's very sweet. Scratch his back and he leans right in, making happy grunts and smiling. The only problem is that he probably weighs more than I do at the moment and the leaning part was a bit problematic. I was gifted with a small pork roast, and I'm going to buy a crock pot and find a good recipe early next week.

My running came to a stand-still about two weeks ago. I'm starting again today, but the snowshoe race is Sunday and I'm really not ready for it, but I'll give it my best shot. I figure it doesn't really matter where I finish, as long as I finish, and I can walk 3.5 miles easy if I have to. I'm psyched as well as being nervous. I'm also signing up for the other two races in the series, if you do all three, you get the Badass achievement. No, seriously. That's the official designation by the running club for anyone who does all three races in the season.

Last night, Jason and I went to an AHL hockey game. It was the first non-collegiate hockey game I've ever gone to. Not all that impressive. I swear those kids on the UMaine hockey team 20 years ago had better skills on the ice then the Portland Pirates did last night. They blew a 2-0 lead in the third period and lost 3-2 to the Worcester Sharks. We only went because Jason won the tickets at trivia last week. I had fun, don't get me wrong, but I certainly wouldn't pay $17 to go again. I have to admit that I was more interested in the Zambonis that I was the actual game, lol.

And here's what I've been reading/watching/playing/listening to for the last week:

Playing: Still playing Lost Odyssey. I'm on disc three, heading for the Ice Canyon. I'm cruising through using the strategy guide, I already finished the game once, so now I'm really just playing for the story and the few achievements I missed the first time. jgusw has been challenged to play Lost Odyssey before he plays through another Mass Effect game as long as I play Mass Effect next. So guess what I'm playing next?

Reading: Still rereading old favorites rediscovered from the boxes at my grandmother's. Read three Louis L'Amour westerns over the past couple of days - the Kilkenny Trilogy - The Rider of Lost Creek, The Mountain Valley War, and Kilkenny. I like Louis L'Amour books. Formulaic as hell, but good, fun, quick reads. I also read Unknown Regions by Robert Holdstock. It's a fantasy set in modern Britain. Not very good, I bought it because I loved his first book, but none of his books after that really measure up to Mythago Wood. I tried reading The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, but gave up about a third of the way in because it was kinda boring and I just didn't like any of the characters enough to care what happened to them.

Watching: Now that I have internet again, I started watching season 2 of Crossing Lines on Netflix. I'm pacing myself with the streaming, because I'm sharing my neighbor's internet and we have a download cap. Still working my way through my second watching of season 1 of Agents of Shield, too. Jason and I watched Napoleon Dynamite again the other night. Still just as funny as the first time I saw it. I need to catch up on my weekly shows soon before the episodes I haven't seen disappear, too. I'm really bummed that Constantine didn't get picked up after the initial 13 episodes. The network hasn't officially announced that yet, but my friend's daughter worked on the show and her parents told me.

Listening: Again, not much in the last week. Bruce Molsky's Lost Boy is in my CD player in the car and I've been too lazy to change the disc, lol.

Well, I'm off to do something constructive with my day. Wish me luck for this weekend!

mothman

01/22/2015 at 11:12 AM

mmmmmm, Kilkenny.

Ranger1

01/22/2015 at 06:36 PM

Mmm beer!

goaztecs

01/22/2015 at 12:17 PM

Yay caffeine! Since giving up caffeine the only thing I do miss is a good cup of coffee. I'm surprised especially since I love Vanilla Coke. Good to read that the coffee is back in your life!

Good luck on all three of your races! The most important thing is finishing and that is badass that you are taking on all three.

Since College Hockey isn't an official sport in Southern California, there are a lot of club teams, and I watched a couple at State. You got to see some of the good stuff with Maine. Did you get to watch Former Duck Paul Kariya? I do like Minor League Hockey. San Diego was/is (I don't know if they are still around) home to the Gulls and they were supposed to be one of the big teams in their league. It was fun to watch, because it was cheap, and since we knew someone my friends and I got to be on the ice between periods. I think we cleaned ice or something random. Our big find was a tooth. Oh minor league sports.

Again Good Luck on the races and snap a pic or two if they give out medals.

01/22/2015 at 03:06 PM

Chris, it was so long ago that I went to see the Black Bears play, I don't remember who I saw. Maybe 24 years ago now. I just remember that they kicked arch rival Boston College's butt and the crowd went wild. My best friend from high school invited me up to Orono (the town where UMaine is located) for the weekend for one of the women's basketball games and the men's hockey game. I remember seeing Cindy Blodgett play basketball, but not who any of the hockey players were.

As for the race - no medals. Prizes are racing snowshoes for the over all winners, and locally donated items for the rest. It's a pretty small (race cap is 50 people), low-key race where the main focus is to have fun. The overall winners will finish in about 20 minutes, I'm just hoping to keep my time under an hour.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

01/22/2015 at 01:12 PM

good luck in the race, man. I think it's awesome you're doing it. I wish I had the balls for something like that. IT's especially hard since I smoke cigarettes. Damn.

I think it's awesome you're gonna play Mass Effect. I love that series. Each title has it's own advantages. Overall it's a great experience.

I need to read and write more Westerns.

01/22/2015 at 06:38 PM

I'll probably walk most of it, I'm not where I'd hoped to be physically by this time, but I'll run what I can and walk the rest.

Super Step Contributing Writer

01/22/2015 at 02:04 PM

That's awesome they have a badass achievement. I'm doing a 5k March 28 and may sign up for a mud run in April.

I'd like to go to an NHL game some time.

01/22/2015 at 06:39 PM

It's not called an achievement, per se, you just the right to call yourself a Badass. There's usually a hoodie or a beanie with "Badass" on it, too.

I'd like to go to an NHL game sometime, too. These guys are AHL.

01/22/2015 at 07:46 PM

Yeah, AHL here would be the Texas Stars, but to be honest I'd rather watch the Dallas ones. (Stars that is). Also, I'd have to drive to Austin for a Texas Stars game, where Dallas Stars are right there near my parents' at American Airlines Center.

01/22/2015 at 08:24 PM

Well, I'd have to go to Boston for an NHL game and I can see AHL practically in my own backyard. But I kknow what you're saying, lol.

Aboboisdaman

01/22/2015 at 02:35 PM

I didn't really understand why everybody thought Napoleon Dynamite was so great the first time I saw it. I love that movie now though. Seems like it gets better everytime I watch it. Which is also how I feel about Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock. Good luck with your races!!

01/22/2015 at 06:41 PM

I knew people like that in high school, which is probably why I spent the whole movie laughing the first time I saw it. Heck, I probably was one of those people in high school.

Michael117

01/22/2015 at 03:34 PM

I watched the first season of Longmire and kind of want to see what the books are like now. I want to buy War and Peace as well as Crime and Punishment first. I found those for super cheap on Thriftbooks.com recently and realized I don't have them

KnightDriver

01/22/2015 at 04:36 PM

I'm reading War and Peace right now. Boy is that like playing a Dragon Quest game to completion - long.

The Longmire books are so much better than the series. The Henry Standing Bear of the books is just plain awesome. And the series doesn't really follow the books at all. Branch is a very minor character in the first book and then he disappears for ever, Walt's wife died of cancer, she wasn't murdered, the Ferg isn't an inept young guy, he's just a quiet older guy who loves to fish.

As for Dostoyevsky, I read both Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov in high school. The Brothers Karamazov is the better book, in myu opinion, it's just a lot longer. Never read War and Peace (or anything else by Tolstoy, for that matter).

01/22/2015 at 04:32 PM

Good luck on your becoming a badass!

I read some L'Amour books back in high school. I forget which ones, but they were about the travails of a wagon train heading out west.

I still haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite, but I saw the director's next film, Gentlemen Broncos, and loved that.

I'm reading Halo: Broken Circle and playing Diablo III right now. I'm also playing the games in Mii Plaza on 3DS and trying, trying to get more time with Fantasy Life, but I'll have to put that down when Grim Fandango HD comes out next week. I'll be playing that on Vita.

01/22/2015 at 06:43 PM

Thanks! I'll need it! The other two races are 4.5 miles and 6 miles. They're all three weeks apart, so if I get back to training, I might actually do okay in them.

Most Louis L'Amour books have similar plot lines. The names and locations change, but they're all pretty much the same story. I like them anyway, though.

Go rent it. Now.

01/23/2015 at 01:58 AM

I'll get it from the library.

Cary Woodham

01/22/2015 at 08:22 PM

Good luck on your snowshoe race! I'll be cheering for you! Don't forget to eat your Cheerios! :)

01/22/2015 at 08:26 PM

Thanks, Cary! I'll eat 'em, as long as they're honey nut or apple cinnamon.

Sonicbug

01/23/2015 at 10:45 PM

I think the "Constantine not getting picked up" for a back 13 has been known since November. Unless your insider knowledge relates to the creators not bothering to shop it around... which would be terrible on DC's part. I've been enjoying it, tonight's episode was great. I hope if NBC ditches it Sci-fi or Netflix picks it up.

01/23/2015 at 11:37 PM

Harmony's gone walkabout in Europe and Asia, so I'm guessing it's dead for real.

C.S.3590SquadLeader

01/24/2015 at 09:25 PM

Best of luck in the races, hope you get that Badass achievement!

That sucks about Constantine. I was really interested in the show, which should've been my first indication that it was doomed based on my track record with liking NBC shows. Still nursing the hurt from Life and Awake.

01/24/2015 at 09:27 PM

Oh, you have that effect on shows, too? I thought it was just me, lol.

jgusw

01/25/2015 at 08:14 AM

I started playing Lost Odyseey late last night. I got a couple hours in. I wanted to do more, but I wasted a lot of time watching youtube videos about Lost Odyseey, and then Bayonetta 2, and then Skyward Sword and then Mass Effect, and then skateboarding, and well.... down the rabbit hole I went. Almost 3 hours gone. I'm playing more Lost Odyseey today though.

01/25/2015 at 10:10 AM

LOL. So easy for that to happen. Read up on how immortals learn skills and start them off right away, makes a huge difference on the difficulty level later in the game.

NSonic79

02/05/2015 at 11:55 PM

Oh no! not mass effect?!?! I'd rather play that Lost Odyssey game than that game. In fact I'd rather play Star Ocean The Last Hope International than Mass Effect.

....

That gives me an idea......

PixlBit

Random Update 1-22-15

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