PixlBit

It’s time to finally start off this year’s Blog a Day challenge with the intended blog that I planned to start off with: My “Away From Keyboard” blog. Time to fill you all in on what exactly kept me away from blogging for the past three months. I’ll try to make it short/sweet without getting to personal/rambling on and on like a rabid foamed madman, hell bent on destroying the world atom by atom till there is not even antimatter left of what was once our dimensional reality.

The holidays

Turkey Day and Christmas were particularly busy for me last year. I’m not sure specifically what took up the most time during those family celebrations but it seemed that there was a lot to be done with very little time being able to prepare/enjoy the holidays. Don’t be me wrong I did have a good holiday run but it left me so tired/drained that I didn’t’ have much in me to do anything else. With all the food to be shared, stories to be told, gifts to be bought and wrapped, skype calls to coordinate, it just seemed like a daunting task this year around. It was all completed and enjoyed all around but it left me mentally drained to the point where it seemed I was suffering from turkey poisoning.

Work goin downhill

The commute into work seems to have becoming more and more of a hassle thanks to new road construction, heavy traffic, accidents and idiot drivers, which is now taking more than half as long for me to get to work. Also it doesn’t help matters that the new manager at my employment is changing things dramatically to the point where I don’t recognize my original job to begin with. Instead of being “multitaskers” where any one of us in my department is able to do the job of anybody else, he’s now assigned specific jobs to specific people. Though we have leeway in how to do our jobs as in primary, secondary, and trinary duties, we are responsible to one particular job. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue expect I was assigned to the job that I HATE the most to do in my department. And it was made even worse when one day the manager was gone and one of the other workers in my department decided to re-arrange job assignments to HIS liking and not by the managers, thus screwing me even more in the process. I got my sweet vindication after words but I think it’s time for me to move on and find other gainful employment. Change has never been good from my experience and this seems no different.

Hairless Cat issues

Awhile back “The Wife” and I took in my “Little One”s pet hairless cat from out east. When she first got him he was a well behaved and proper pet. But ever since returning from the East Coast he’s become arrogant, spoiled and bossy to the point where he thinks he can go to the bathroom anywhere he wants instead of the toilet where he was trained. He even thinks he can sleep in MY bed whenever he decides. It’s taking longer than usual to put him in his place since “Teh Wife” won’t let me use my training methods that have worked so well in the past with me on other cats. Something about cruelty to animals or some nonsense, it’s only a 9Volt shock collar!!!

Delayed 1up.com depression

I’ve known that accessing 1up.com has no locked out for a while now but it seemed right after my Octoberween Blogging madness, it just seemed to hit me that 1up.com is well and truly gone. Even though we knew this was the case a long time ago, I still frequented the site and posted blogs on there. I had planned on doing it till the site actually went down for good. But I wasn’t expecting the site to still be up though being unable to access the community functions. I guess I had regret that my last blog on there wasn’t an actual goodbye blog that gave access info to all my contacts on the internet. I doubt anyone would want to track me down that way anyhow but it would’ve been nice to leave contact links. Sure this frees me up to blog more on here and IGN but it still bummed me out just the same and took the wind out of my blogging sails.

Helped an aunt with a tech problem.

My not so savvy aunt with tech had her cheaply flat screen TV die awhile back and she asked me to help shop for her in finding a TV “that would last her till she died.” It was a tall order to fulfill given how they don’t make TV’s like they used to. I had to do some shopping around locally and online to be able to find her the right TV with the right features at the right price. In the end it was mission accomplished but it took it out of me trying to compare and research every small detail of any TV she was curious about.

#GamerGate

I tried to keep myself at arm’s length about this issue. Truly I did! I mostly checked up on it if only to get a laugh on how convoluted and messed up the entire issue has become from its original mission. It used to be a comical constant in seeing how people would do near point ridiculous things to make their point be known. But that all changed when somehow the GamerGate cause was used to help “rescue” the PC game “Hatred” from being denied a listing on Steam’s Greenlight service. Whether this was direct involvement of GamerGate or just gamers using it as a means to an end, like others have done to push the agenda of censorship, they bullied Steam to change their stance on denying the game a listing on the basis that “Hatred” IS A WORK OF ART (WTH!?!??!) and shouldn’t be censored from the marketplace.

Really? Really? “Hatred” THIS IS NOW CONSIDERED ART?!?!?!

I had to speak up on this finding the gaming I was looking forward to being reduced to the lowly stature of “art” and the responses I got back where informative but depressing to say the least. If this is truly what is expected out of an “enlightened gamer” than I’d rather be dumb. Which leads to my next point.

Just playing games for fun!

I didn’t bother debating the issue with other games when in their mind’s eye EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING CAN BE ART, and instead just found myself trying to find a reason why I should remain a gamer. The new console generation hasn’t won me over and I found myself diving back into good ol’ games that were made in prior years where a game didn’t have to be something more than the sum of its parts. So I’ve mostly dived back into what some would now consider “retro” though that terms seems to be taking on different meanings depending who you talked to. Regardless I just ended up playing games I just found fun instead of games that had a “hidden meaning” or were considered controversial or pushed the boundaries of modern gaming. But that didn’t mean I fully shied away from current games…..

Ace Combat Infinity

Never have I had so much FUN with a F2P title out there! I never took to them on PC’s and though XBLA had some F2P offerings, they didn’t quite grip me like Ace Combat Infinity has. Despite the typical grind you can expect from F2P games, I found myself going back for more if only to earn credits to buy new aircraft, level up existing aircraft/weapons or seeing what the next challenge would be. There’s just something about being able to play an online mission with different people on the same maps that randomly generate enemy threats that seems so fun despite the fact that I bought 4 disc based Ace Combat titles that I haven’t gotten around too. I hope to write a “not review” of Ace Combat Infinity as well as updates on new content that drops. It makes me wonder why I haven’t seen a gaming site that doesn’t devote time to console F2P titles. You’d be surprised how many are out there now.

General laziness

It’s nice to play games for playing sake but I neglected to balance out my game time with blogging time. Right now if the gaming industry did come to a crash, I’d have enough games to last me an entire lifetime. Though I would want to buy more titles, I don’t see myself having the urge to buy much of anything unless it’s something from the PS2/Xbox/GC era and older than something from Xbox 360/PS3 and more recent. So I’ve had to balance out that desire to follow my retro urges and game out than sitting down in front of my netbook and blog. I hope to fix that this month.

So that’s where things stand right now. I’m back and I hope to be back for the duration of my birthday month. Hopefully I can delivery decent, high quality blogs during this year’s BaD challenge. Despite the issues stated above that the recent saddening news of the passing of Monty Oum, I plan to push ahead and be as creative as possible. I hope you’re all able to enjoy the ride. This month is dedicated to you Monty and I intend to make the most of it, despite the stress and depression that threatens it!

Ta-ta

“N”