August 18, 2013

I didn't have a lot going on today. It was a typical Sunday. I thought about hanging my Red Rocks poster but didn't go any further than that. I played some video games, starting with Burnout: Paradise. I was a big fan of the original Burnout games back in the day because it was incredibly satisfying to ram into cars and make them crash or get points for having near misses or try to cause the most damage in a massive wreck. Burnout: Paradise is a different game. They made it an open world game so you drive around the city and each intersection is a potential event, like a race or whatever, and you spin your wheels at the intersection if you want to partake. It's not as fun as the old games, I have to say, but I can see it maybe growing on me. I'll need to get over the horrible camera and mini-map first, though. The camera is sluggish, messes up when you get in wrecks or go in reverse, and there are only two positions. The mini-map shows a small section of the city at a time and the player is represented by a triangle. But the map doesn't orient to the player, so when you are driving south, the triangle is pointed down, and if you see something to the right of you on the map you have to turn left. I guess it is probably a good exercise for spatial awareness but it is still awful.

I jumped into a few rounds of Black Ops 2 for the first time in months. I still kind of have it. And by have it I mean I can almost go even with my K/D. My sensitivity felt way too high from what I remember and my aim was awful, but for the most part I held my own, and I got to play on Nuketown a couple times.

I also played a little bit of Cube World. Just enough to level up once and see that the game is as I remember it. It is a good waste of time, just running around and looking at the randomly generated landscape. Now they just need to put out some major updates to make the game interesting again.

Tonight I played Trials: Evolution and beat the final Extreme track. I beat it a long time ago on the Xbox but the Extreme tracks, and some of the Hard ones, are pretty much all luck when I'm playing. I think I was somewhere over 300 faults and over 20 minutes by the time I beat the Extreme track tonight. And if I had tried again immediately after, I probably would have been close to the same, if I was even able to make it past all the obstacles. But I like the game.

On Tuesday Saints Row 4 comes out and I am pretty excited about that. I played the hell out of the last game and this one looks pretty much the same, just a little more over the top, and I am cool with that. And hopefully my opinion remains the same when I actually play the game. My main concern at the moment involves the vehicles. In the last game one of my favorite things was going around and collecting practically every vehicle in the game and customizing it. In the new game the main character has super powers so you can run really fast and kind of fly. The few early reviews I have seen on YouTube mention how they rarely use the vehicles because it is just easier to run around and climb buildings and fly. So I am hoping that there are still a lot of different vehicles in the game and that the customization options are still there. And that I will still be interested in doing all that even with the super powers.

I edited one of my panoramas from Colorado, adjusting the colors a bit and resizing it so the ppi was print quality high and the size was six inches high. I wanted that height because I found a website that does panoramic prints and their smallest option was six inches high. That height gave me a pretty high ppi and kept the picture width at two feet. That seems like a pretty manageable size. If the print comes out well I think I am going to have it framed and give it to my dad for his birthday. And maybe order another print for myself.

Tonight we had a family dinner. My sister and I went down to the barbecue place and then Freddy's for my veggie burgers, and brought it all home. I think the guy at Freddy's dropped the 's' so he could rhyme when he said “Welcome to Freddy, order when you're ready.” I could have also misheard him but I don't think I did. As for the food, they didn't put cheese on my burgers which was great because they usually ignore my request for no cheese. And I ended up eating way too much food, like I always do. I am just glad I exercised today so I don't feel quite as guilty. And the extra food will be motivation enough for me to actually exercise tomorrow morning. Doubtful, considering I am up relatively late for a school night, but there is always a chance.

The school starts the year with color themes each day and everyone is supposed to wear those colors. It is a kindergarten thing, maybe to help them learn those colors, but the whole school participates. Tomorrow is blue and I can nail that one with everything blue except for my under shirt and socks, if I decide to wear my blue shoes, but I think Tuesday or Wednesday is orange. That one isn't going to happen.