Dammit! I Thought The Flu Shot Was Supposed To Prevent The Flu!

I have failed myself. Yesterday, because I got sick, I was unable to post anything. I could always post something and have the system date it as yesterday, but there would be no point. I would know that I didn’t make it. I had almost successfully posted at least once a day for the last month. My Combo has been broken. Poor poor Randy.

Continuing on with my failures, this months Video Game Challenge has been a complete wash. I did not complete Eternal Darkness, nor did I get to play any other horror or Halloween themed games. Additionally, today I won’t be able to play through Costume Quest like planned since I’m too sick to actually play. All I want to do is puke. Be happy I was able to post at least this notice.

What I may do is postpone announcing November’s challenge until Monday November 7, and spend the rest of the week trying to finish out Eternal Darkness. Do a little overtime if you will. Also I haven’t figured out what I want to play for November, I have a handful of games I want to finish, but I don’t know where to begin.

On to something more positive, one thing I did do successfully this month is play through Sonic Colours in preparation for the release of Sonic Generations. It took me roughly 5 hours (or less) to beat it and it was done over three sittings. Easy to beat, hard to master. I liked it and couldn’t recommend it more.

Spending Time With Two Old Friends

According to JD I’m more than 50% through Sonic Colours. Wow. Short game, but a quality game. Playing through this over the last two days has really reignited my hope in SEGA for Sonic Generations. If its half as good as Colours, Generation will still be better than any other Sonic games released in the last few years. I’m glad that its shaping up.

I’ve also picked up Kirby’s Return To Dreamland. I am a huge fan of that pink puffball, and everything about this game evokes a sense of nostalgia. Back in the day I used to play Kirby Superstar for the SNES with my cousin, and this brought me back to that. High praise. I recommend it to everyone.

“HAHAHA! Baldy Nosehair, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day!”

I’ve started playing through Sonic Colours for the Nintendo Wii, and boy am I enjoying it. Its been a while since I played a “modern sonic” that I’ve enjoyed. Everything really came together: a cheesy story (Robotnik opens an amusement park and harvests aliens for their energy), fast gameplay, multiple paths, and an even difficulty. This definitely wipes the horrible taste known as Sonic Unleashed from my mouth, I tell you what.

What The Hell Did I Just Watch?!

So, I just finished watching tonight’s episode of Community ("Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps")…Wow. That was either one of the most awesome things I’ve seen or the worst. I can’t tell which. Either way it was pure insanity, and I couldn’t stop laughing throughout.

Yeah, just watch it if you can, I can’t describe it. Wow, just wow.

The Problem With Having No Life

I’ve been having trouble finding what to write everyday simply because I have nothing to do, and nothing new to say. I’m broke, not going to school, and don’t have a social life, and not particularly interesting overall. This is a problem when you attempt to keep a daily blog. As I’ve nothing new to do, this has more or less become some sort of half-assed journal. I didn’t really think that would happen, but I guess it was inevitable.

On the brighter side of things, I’ll be starting a new part time job soon, I’m just waiting for the details to be confirmed. I’ll be working around 28 hours or less a week. Better than nothing, and it gets me out of the house which is a good thing.

Today, I spent the entire afternoon cleaning my house, something I’ve been unable to do for several weeks now, as I’ve had to wait for my back to make a full recovery. It was nice to do, mindless but nice. Apparently I let my house go a bit, so it was nice to air it out, wash some floors, deodorise some furniture and whatnot. I’m still not done, but I’ll finish it off over the next few days.

Update on my monthly video game challenge. I’m considering it a failure, I’ve just had not motivation to complete Eternal Darkness. It just never hooked me like I thought it would. I’ll still attempt to play it out by the 31st but don’t hold your breath. I still plan on playing through Costume Quest on Monday but if I do, it’ll be for me and nobody else. I’ll be starting the challenge afresh come November.

Arrietty Trailer

I’ve been looking forward to this, check out the trailer below:

I initially went SQUEE and then got weary. Something just seems off about the voice acting in this one. Usually Disney does excellent dubs for Ghibli films, but yeah something seems off with this one. Maybe it was just the clips they chose for the trailer, but it doesn’t seem to be as well put together as previous film dubs.

More Than A Little Disturbing…

So, um, yeah, just read the latest at Rhymes With Witch by the creator of the webcomic, Something Positive, and I’m a little freaked out. For Halloween (I assume), RK Milholland has done a series of water colours titled, “The Last Trick-Or-Treaters”, each one panel comic depicts the horrible end of trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Some are darkly humourous, but all are horrifying. I recommend them purely for the scares, and the art, but be warned. As of this date he’s done 8 parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), check’em out.

Bored to Death

It doesn’t really feel like I have a life at the moment. I’m tired all the time and I’ve got nothing to do. I’m failing miserably at my monthly videogame challenge because I’m unable to motivate myself to play the game further. Life is just BLAH at the moment and I don’t know what to do anymore.

Yeah, I know this sounds like I’m depressed, and maybe I am, but I’ve also been known to be effected by the weather, and seeing as its been nothing but rain clouds and grey skies, I’m pretty positive that’s what’s going on with me at the moment. All I’ve got is time on my hands and I’ve got to figure out what to do with myself.

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Tired :(

Sorry, running late today, been on my feet all day and just got back from seeing Real Steel. Its been a while since I’ve seen a film in theatres, but this was worth it. Of course a movie with Hugh Jackman will usually be pretty good because he’s a very likable actor. This one would have been good either way. It was a fun, mindless film with lots of robot on robot boxing violence. It was Robocky (Robot + Rocky), and it very much followed that type of storyline. Good movie.

I’m tired, so off to bed.

Is It Just Me Or Do Those Clouds Look Super Evil? : A Follow Up

Remember how I was complaining about the weather? So roughly an hour after I posed that complaint yesterday, the sky opened up and hail or sleet (not sure which) came pouring down. It was a complete white out outside my house. The wind was blowing strongly and banging against my doors and windows. Apparently we had a tornado/hurricane warning in effect at that time for my area. Go figure. I need to not complain about the weather so that doesn’t happen again.

Is It Just Me Or Do Those Clouds Look Super Evil?

This weather we’re having is starting to get on my nerves, it won’t make its mind up about whether it wants to be sunny and nice or rainy and miserable. It’s preventing me from getting any serious housecleaning done. Another season messed up due to global warming I guess.

Nothing really new going on in my life at the moment, though I will be starting a part time job soon, which makes me happy. It’ll give me something to do with my copious amounts of time while I figure out what to do to get ready for school. I started reading The Edupunk’s Guide to DIY Credentials which seems to be a good (free) manual for self learning. A lot of the particulars don’t apply to me as its heavily USA-centric, but the core of it is good. I’ll have to start thinking about creating a lesson plan for the beginning of next year. Seeing as I really do want to get readmitted to school to complete my English Literature Bachelor Degree, it’ll probably be very literature centric, but no idea yet.

A Milestone…

Just realised that I’ve not only written more blog posts than I did previously on The Slacker Chronicles, but I’ve also written more blog posts overall.

Hooray for me!

Early Morning Musings

So, yeah, I feel like absolute crap today. My body hurts, my eyes hurt, and my stomach is upset. Just not my day. So I’ve been surfing the internet, and all I’ve got to say is, “What’s the deal with “Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure”?” The internet has been surprisingly receptive of this “game” manufactured to sell toys to little kids. Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade seem to like it, and Jeff Gerstmann, of Giant Bomb, has taken it and ran with it, going so far as considering on the latest Bombcast (10-18-2011) to go out and purchase all $400 worth of the figurines. The last part should be taken with a grain of salt as Mr Gerstmann is known for doing stupid things when it comes to video games.

Here’s the launch trailer:

I really don’t know how I feel about all this. The trailer makes me immediately nostalgic for old Transformers, He-Man, TMNT cartoons, etc. Cartoons whose sole purpose was to sell toys to children. At the same time, it makes be feel dirty. How much of the game can be completed with the starter figures? What is the entire cost of the game if you just want to “mainline” the game?

So Tired

I’ve been out all day today, and it looks like I might be receiving work more regularly. No details as of yet, but here’s hoping its something that I can do. I’m just so so tired today, been awake since 6am, and on my feet since around 8am. Its nice to just sit back and relax at the moment.

What’s With All These Photo Posts?!

So yeah, whenever you see something “Posted Without Comment’ that basically just means I had nothing better to write about that day, or I just thought the photo was amusing and wished to share. Here’s another:

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A Good Morning Post

So I’ve got nothing big planned today. After I run some errands this morning, I’m free sit down and play through the remainder of Eternal Darkness. From what I understand, it should average roughly 5-6 hours per playthrough, and it has 3 different endings. I’m a little over 3 hours into the game, so that means at least 50% done the game. I just want to finish it and get my motivation back. For some reason this challenge just hasn’t motivated me. I’m liking the game so far other than some niggling issues with the combat, but it just hasn’t quite hooked me yet. Maybe if I play for more than an hour at a time it would grab me.

More in a later post.

I Apologise For The Inconvenience

I think I’ve caught a cold. For roughly the last week I’ve barely slept, my sinuses are all congested, and I apparently have a slight fever. So more than likely a cold. Its been a boring week otherwise. I’ve done nothing. I don’t have any motivation to do anything right now, all I want to do is sleep. Due to this I’ve barely played anything of Eternal Darkness this week. I would have thought I’d be done it by this point and moved on to something else. Instead I’ve spent the week watching an anime called, “Tiger & Bunny”. I enjoyed it quite a bit, which is something I’ve not been able to say about an anime in a few years.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and I’ll try to beat Eternal Darkness this weekend and keep the internet posted.

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Virgin Mobile Canada Issues Part 2

Guess who just called? Yup, that’s right. Man, they must really want me back. I’m probably going to lose my number over this too. Oh well. I think I’ll let them lose my business for good.

After some research I discovered that at some point VMC was bought out by BELL Canada. I don’t really like BELL from previous experiences with their customer service. Unfortunately, they’re the only game in town.

Sigh, I wish they would stop calling. I recognise their number so I’m just going to ignore their calls from this point forward.

Virgin Mobile Canada Issues

So due to this whole economic downturn I’ve been without a job since roughly May of last year. While I have looked for jobs in my community, I haven’t been all that successful. At this point in time, I currently have next to no income, leading me to cut off as many extraneous costs as possible. My cell phone has been deactivated since the beginning of September as I’ve had little reason to use it. Why tell you all this? To set up the next paragraph.

Roughly around the same time I hurt my back, I started to receive sales calls from Virgin Mobile Canada asking me to reactivate and Top Up my cell phone this month and they’d give me 25% more time based on the amount deposited. I notified them all of the above and that I’d only be able to add time around the end of October, and only if I deemed the cost necessary. In reply to this the sales person assured me they would call back near the end of the month.

They have called me almost every day since.

I’ve been using a pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile Cell since 2006/2007, whenever they first released them in Canada, and have had little to complain about. But this is starting to drive me nuts. How many times can I explain to a salesperson I have no extra money to spend at the moment? I’ve sent an email to them in regards to this, and hope that this can be resolved. I’d really hate for them to lose my business as they’ve been good to me up to this point.

Just felt I should share.

Early Morning Post

Even though I went to bed a early last night, I’m still tired. I had a horrible night of sleep. My mattress is killing my back, which had finally returned to normal. I really just want to go back to bed but can’t. I don’t know what to do.

ETERNAL DARKNESS: "Is This Really Happening?!" (Minor Spoilers)

So, I just played Eternal Darkness again for roughly 50 minutes or so. I think I’m finally at the point in the game where shit just got real. The combat is still clunky, but with a better weapon things are much easier. In the third chapter, you play a squire (?) to Charlemagne who receives a message meant for his king, and becomes infected by its curse. The chapter teaches you the basics of the magick systems in the game, which requires the player to collect runes and assemble them in such a way to produce a spell. As the chapter progresses, the cursed character is slowly rotting away, becoming a zombie. This is also the first time I’ve felt how Sanity effects the actual game. As my character’s sanity was lost the camera went slight askew, and there were parts of the game you would play through just to discover you imagined it and had to redo it again. Once this starts happening, the tension rises. While I wasn’t frightened in the slightest, I can see how this mechanic can lead to some possible terrifying situations.

Peace & Quiet

Today was just about as relaxing as it could get. I was able to sleep in, and then just relax completely for the rest of the day. Just me and my bastard dog doing absolutely nothing.

Here’s another picture of my dog just to fill up space:

I hope your day was just as relaxing as mine.

Good night, and I’ll (probably) post something more substantial tomorrow.

Incomprehensible Gargling of Rage

So, was hanging with my buddy JD today. He somehow convinced me to finally get back to playing Sonic Unleashed. One second while I take a breather. Just writing that name right now is bring so much rage to the surface. JD sat there and laughed non-stop because he could tell I was going to snap. I HATE Sonic Unleashed. The first level of the game is decent, and then they shoot two poorly designed Brawler type levels at you, a QT eventfest, and a poorly designed Sonic Speed level. This game just does so many things wrong. For instance, every other Sonic game will map the homing attack to the same button as jump, here they map it to a completely different button. So when I’ve intended to jump and home, I’m really just jumping and then pressing the button again (which does nothing) and usually falling in to a pit.

Sonic Unleashed shouldn’t be this bad, but now I hate it completely. You hear that SEGA, SONIC UNLEASHED MAKES ME ALMOST NOT WANT TO PLAY SONIC AGAIN. I hate it. I really really hate it.

I find it quite fitting that the last achievement I received for this game is titled, “Still Broken”. That just about sums up my feelings for the game.

Life of Randy: Too Much?

Just realised that having everything be Life of Randy might be too much. Basically because of my resolution to write something everyday, there will be one Life of Randy post per day, so roughly 30 Life of Randy posts a month, 365 for the whole year. Yikes.

Might have to use that label for only specific things, or maybe rename this blog, “Life of Randy”?

I’ll figure something out.

Life of Randy: Oh Happy Day!

Today I awoke at 6am and y’know how my back felt? Achy. Not a bad ache, but the ache one feels when they’ve slept in the wrong position. My back feels so much better today that it has all week. So I guess everything is almost back to normal for me. I’m going to try and get out stretch, walk, and just plain move around. I’m so glad that the pain has stopped. The stiffness that remain should go away the more I move and stretch out my back. Here’s hoping this good fortune keeps up.

Have a good day everyone!

More Impressions of Eternal Darkness

I’ve not made much progress in Eternal Darkness since Tuesday, but the game has me intrigued. While I’m disliking the combat, the story is slowly getting its hooks into me. If you’ve not played the game before, the story begins with one Alexandra Roivas returning to her grandfather’s house after his mysterious and violent death. By exploring his house, she slowly discovers that things are not what they appear to be.

In the game, once Alexandra finds the Tome of Eternal Darkness, we are treated to a series of gameplay vignettes, featuring different characters who are associated with the overall story arc. I’m only roughly 1 1/2 hours into the game, and so far I’ve played through the back story of Pious Augustus, a roman soldier who seems to have set the games events in motion, and a Ellia, a dancer whose curiousity leads her to explore a mysterious and foreboding temple.

Each story introduces the player to different gameplay elements. In Pious Augustus’ segment, we learn about the combat system. I’ve already made it clear that at this point in time the combat plain annoys me. Ellia’s segment introduces us to the games trademarked “Sanity” system. Every time you see a monster, you start to lose sanity. As you lose your grasp of your mind, the game starts to mess with you, changing the visuals, telling you your controller is unplugged when it isn’t and others. The only way to regain your sanity is be killing each monster you come across.

Tomorrow I plan to sit down and play through more and I’ll keep you posted on my experiences.

Life of Randy: Today’s Plans

Good morning,

My back is almost “back” to normal? See what I did there? A bad pun? Get it? Yeah, I’m wasting my time. I just had breakfast, surfed the internet, and drank a cup of coffee. I’ll be out for a bit, running some errands, but after that I’ll have some time to sit down and play more Eternal Darkness. I’ll have more about Eternal Darkness up by the evening.

More in the next post.

Life of Randy: Daily Update

So, yeah, I kind of decided that these random daily posts about nothing in particular will all be titled Life of Randy. Its just easier to do it that way. Due to this decision, I’ve went back and renamed some to include that title in some way. You’ll now be able to find all of this pointless posts tagged with “Life of Randy”.

On the subject of Randy, my back is much better. Other than one spot near the middle of my back being achy, and my left side from that spot down to my knee being stiff, its all good. I’m starting to get back my full range of movement, even though its for short periods of time. I’ve had to take a break here and there to allow my back to rest, but I’m glad this is almost over.

Didn’t really game much today, or yesterday, but I’ll be getting back into it now, and I’ll provide some steady coverage of Eternal Darkness starting tomorrow barring any further back complications.

See you next time.

First Impressions: Eternal Darkness

Yesterday, I was able to sink around an hour and a half into Eternal Darkness. In that time I died three times, all due to the game’s clunky combat system. At this point in the game combat consists of pressing A and swinging aimlessly. You can not block or dodge enemy attacks, you can only swing your weapon. The combat does have the appearance of complexity, as you are able to lock-on to an enemy and select parts of the body to attack. In the segment I played I was able to cut off a skeleton’s arms, and head, which resulted in it failing to the game, at which point the game prompted me to press B to administer a “Finishing Blow”. Cool in concept, but hampered by the controls at this point. I’m hoping that the combat evolves more the longer I play, but I don’t see that happening.

Gameplay reminds me of a point-and-click adventure game, with you controlling the player character instead of controlling a cursor. As you explore your environment, you can examine certain items, bringing up in many cases well written walls of text that describe said item. So far, all the text in the game is well written, quickly establishing the tone of the game. The game’s graphics are also decent for a GameCube game released almost 10 years ago.

Other than the combat, my only other issue is that its not really that scary of a horror game. Going in, I had read and been told that it is a genuinely frightening game, but so far its solicited zero response from me.

Life of Randy: Back Pain & Videogames

So I’m feeling much better, its been 5 days since I first hurt my back. Today I’ll be flying solo, no OTC medications to help. The pain in my back has lessened greatly, all that remains is stiffness throughout my back, limited mobility, and the occasional twinge of pain in my left side. I’m glad that it seems to be healing at a good pace, but I can not wait until I’m able to move about more. I really want to return to the gym again.

On the gaming side of things, I’ll be posting my initial impressions of Eternal Darkness later today, as I was able to bare sitting in my gaming area for a long period of time yesterday. Hooray for me. That should be up by 3 today, I just want to put in a little more time before I write anything on it. My time with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame has been an enjoyable one, but I think I will take a step back and take a break from it. Yesterday, I discovered that I’ve been effected by a glitch in the game which prevents the unlocking of a specific achievement. In order to resolve this issue, I’ll need to delete and redownload the game, and play from scratch across all four initially unlocked characters. For me a single playthrough of the game cab take between 45minutes to 90 minutes, and after the amount I’ve played it this weekend, I’m not up to it again. Still a great game though, all things considered.

And lastly, I hope you enjoyed that random photo of my dog yesterday. I was lazy and didn’t feel like writing anything yesterday. I also like that photo. Anyways. I’ll be back in a bit with impressions of Eternal Darkness.

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Life of Randy: More Back Pain & I Played Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame

Since I’ve been incapacitated due to my back, I’ve been limited to either lying in bed, or sitting in a big comfy chair in my living room. Unfortunately, my Wii or GameCube isn’t set up in my living room, so I’ve been unable to play Eternal Darkness, but I’ll try to rectify that if the back pain continues. Instead, I’ve been playing what I can, which has been primarily Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame, which I originally purchased for my Xbox 360 last year, but haven’t really sunk a lot of time into it due to it lacking an online co-operative or competitive mode.

Like its comic book progenitor and movie counterpart, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Videogame pays loving tribute to the 8-bit era of gaming. The over world map invokes comparisons to the over world maps of Super Mario Bros 3 (NES), right down to enemies randomly appearing on the map which you can challenge. The game play is highly reminiscent of River City Ransom, with its mix of old school brawler, RPG, and platformer. The stages themselves contain little nods to other games in the genre, for example the whole final stage is basically the Technodrome from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and a Link (of The Legend of Zelda fame) runs on screen during a stage acting like the little imp thieves from Golden Axe carrying bags of coins.

It took me all this time, but I have finally beaten the game, and enjoyed every minute of it. I have in fact beaten it with all the main characters. I have also spent a lot of my time playing it with my older niece. Co-op is even more fun and chaotic than single player mode. I can not recommend this game enough.

As an aside, as I’ve not been able to start my monthly videogame challenge off properly, I’ve proposed a mini-challenge to myself to pass the time. I’ll be attempting to complete the game 100%, finishing off with a complete gamer score of 250/250. Currently I have the majority of the main game achievements, and none of the DLC ones. Soon that will be rectified. I have five to go.

Life of Randy: Back Pain

Today I’m just writing for the sake of writing. I have nothing really to talk about other than how much pain my back is in. It started on Thursday. I was getting out of the shower when my lower back started to spasm. I was completely incapacitated for the remainder of the day. My sister and mother were nice enough to buy me Robax Platinum which seems to be working. Yesterday, the pain went from being really bad to just being painful. The spasms stopped luckily, and now I’m just dealing with a stiff back and minor pain.