Category: IRL

Office excitement

Sir Ben Kingsley visited my office today. Yep. It’s a thing that happened. And honestly, the way people around here reacted was like one notch short of how the characters on TV’s The Office would have acted if a celebrity had visited their workplace. Pandemonium all day. Personally, I tried to play it cool, but I got infected by everyone else’s excitement. I’m a little ashamed. At the very least, I did my best to stay out of the crew’s way.

As the story goes, he was shooting a short additional scene for the upcoming film Nomis. Just a 30-second snippet. He was in and out in ten minutes, but I think that maybe the more impressive thing was the crew’s set-up and take-down. We had about 20 people on the film crew milling about for about two hours, setting up and preparing for the shot. Once it was over, they were gone in under five minutes. It’s kind of fascinating how much more quickly they were able to tear down the operation.

It’s also important to note that in their hustle and bustle, the film crew made a significant mess on our freshly-cleaned carpets and dinged up a bunch of walls. And the office was just renovated last summer. Le sigh.

Anyway, if you care, you can watch that movie to see the Winnipeg skyline outside the window I almost never look out of. It’s got Mr. Kingsley talking on a phone or something in front of a window. I don’t know if I’ll care enough to actually watch the film right away just to spot the scene. I think it’s more likely that I’ll be looking through old blog posts a few years from now, and stumble onto this one, which will inspire me to finally check it out.

Self-improvingment

My New Year’s resolution for 2018 is not a glamorous one. In fact, it’s something that really shouldn’t have to be a resolution. It is quite simply that I want to make a habit of flossing my teeth.

Don’t get me wrong, I am otherwise on top of my dental hygiene. I brush my teeth every day, sometimes twice, and use mouthwash more often than not. It’s just the flossing that’s a big hurdle for me. For some reason, I could just never be bothered.

Now we’re almost through January and honestly, I still haven’t been doing great. I just look at that little dental floss container most nights and think “It’s already really late, that’s another two minutes, I’ll start tomorrow.” However, I am definitely flossing better than usual, as I had a dentist appointment this morning, and my dental hygienist told me that my gums are looking significantly better than last time. So hurray!

Also I had no cavities this time so it’s really quite a big win for me. That’s how you know that I’m the most boring fella on the face of the Earth (I’m okay with that).

Migraine Watch – January 17, 2018

It’s been quite some time since my last migraine, in fact I don’t even remember it. Which kind of makes yesterday a sad day. I was hoping deep in my heart that they would just be gone forever, even though I knew it would be too good to be true. Bad things happen to mediocre people.

Let’s start at the start: perfectly normal day at work, I was actually feeling slightly less exhausted than usual, so maybe I got a decent sleep the previous night? Then, at around a quarter to four, I notice that words and numbers are getting hard to read. I’m still functional, but it’s taking a lot of effort to read anything on either paper or screen.

I immediately poured myself a glass of water and popped two ibuprofen. Twenty minutes later, my vision is restored. However, I do notice a mild pain on the right side of my head. I pray that I was swift enough and that it will not get worse. It does, but not anywhere near as bad as my migraines usually get. It persisted through the evening, though at the less intense level, I remained perfectly functional and went about my daily business as usual.

Weird thing: I actually had some “aura” after the headache part started. On the bus ride home and lasting even about an hour after that, I had a mild numbness along the left side of my body. I worried briefly that my supposed migraine might actually be a stroke, but I don’t think I ever actually believed it could be true.

As far as probable causes, this was my third consecutive day caffeine-free. Normally if I go a day without coffee, I get a pounding headache by around 2PM, but I hadn’t had any issues at all up until this point. So I don’t know if it was just my physical dependence catching up with me or an unfortunate coincidence, but we’re going to blame this one on the lack of coffee. I have also been sleeping worse than usual for the last two weeks, so that may have something to do with it, but there’s no way to be sure.

2017 Video Games Stats

I keep a big Excel spreadsheet of all the video games I buy (it’s much easier to keep updated than The Backloggery), and I thought that it would be fun to break down all that info into numbers. Because I’m a big old nerd and I love organizing data and determining statistics. There’s really not much else to say about it, so let’s jump right in!

Acquisition Stats
Video games “purchased” in 2017 : 148
That’s a lot! Like, too many! But let’s look at some numbers that might make it seem less crazy. (Please note that neither this figure nor any below take into account the SNES Classic Mini.) Things seemed to be going well (aside from “Switch mania”), but then I bought two Halloween bundles, and the year-end sales really got to me, and the number just got really inflated.

Games that were free : 26 (18%)
Games that came in bundles : 51 (34%)
The term “free” covers several cases. Mostly free-to-play games and monthly PS+ downloads. But there’s also at least one cross-buy counted, and games gifted to me are included there.
“Bundles” don’t only mean Humble Bundles and the like. I also included any instances where multiple games were purchased for one price, such as Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.

Double-dips : 18 (12%)
Paid DLC / microtransactions : 7 (5%)
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are a lot of games purchased that I already own on another machine. Simple ports and HD remasters are counted, but full-on remakes are not.
Thankfully, I didn’t spend very much money on additional content or premium currencies in freemium games. A lot of games supplied free DLC this year, which is awesome!

Physical games : 19 (13%)
Digital games : 129 (87%)
I can still remember a time where I was a staunch supporter of buying physical as often as possible. And now… there are so many advantages to buying digital that I can’t help myself. There’s only one tax, you can usually get a really good sale, they don’t take up room on the shelf, I don’t have to go to the store… I often wonder how much money I’d save if digital distribution’s ease to impulse buy wasn’t a thing.

Completion Stats
2017 games played : 82 (55%)
2017 games beaten : 45 (30%)
2017 games done : 40 (27%)
Keep in mind that these stats are only relative to games acquired in 2017. Does not include any games purchased in a previous year. There’s also an important distinction between Beaten and Done. Beaten signifies that I have “rolled the credits” or whatever the equivalent might be. Done is a little looser, as it means that I am completely done with a game. This could mean that I played it to 100% completion, or that I gave up after 20 minutes and never intend to return, or that I lost access to it because I cancelled my PS+ subscription. Or something else along those lines.

I did give my figures a somewhat questionable boost with a few games that can’t be beaten or completed in any measurable factor, like Namco Museum, and immediately filed them under both Beaten and Done. Still, I think the fact that I didn’t even get around to trying 46% of the games I bought last year is rock-solid evidence that I bought far too many games.

System Stats
3DS games purchased : 15 (10%)
DS games purchased : 1 (1%)
Wii U games purchased : 12 (8%)
Switch games purchased : 36 (24%)
PS3 games purchased : 3 (2%)
PS4 games purchased : 33 (22%)
Steam games purchased : 40 (27%)
iOS games purchased : 8 (5%)
There are a lot of little notes that come out of this data…
For one, I didn’t think I had bought that many PS4 games, but then I remembered that a third of those games were free with PS+ and I likely never would have bothered with them otherwise.
I also went a little nutty in March-August, buying up any Switch game that even vaguely piqued my interest. Such is life with a new console in a world where game rentals no longer exist.
If I hadn’t bought any IndieGala bundles, I would have paid for exactly 4 Steam games last year.
I considered breaking down all these numbers by played/beat/done, but there’s just no way to display that nicely in WordPress without a significant amount of effort. So the totals will just have to suffice.

Finally, because I love to compare statistics…

2016 Comparison!
Video games purchased in 2016 : 184 (19.5% decrease in 2017)
2016 games played : 82 (44%)
2016 games beaten : 47 (25%)
2016 games done : 49 (26%)
Holy crow! No wonder I couldn’t afford to keep my house! I bought way too many games in 2016! And I didn’t even boot up half of them! It gets even worse when you consider that all of these numbers continued to increase in 2017. Perhaps my goal for 2018 should be to stop impulse-buying video games. Also to unsubscribe from the Humble Bundle and Indie Gala newsletters.

(If you really wanna know, I’ve only bought one game in 2018 so far.)

Always Sometimes Sickly

I’ve been sick for the last five days. It’s not fun. Just the good ol’ common cold, but I feel like that’s worse than anything because there’s nothing I can do about it but wait it out and hope it goes away before too long. I probably should have called in sick to work yesterday, but this is my busiest time of the year, so that wasn’t really an option. So it was a day of going to the bathroom every ten minutes to blow my nose and having even less focus than ever. I bought some cold relief meds at lunchtime, and they’ve definitely taken the edge off, but there’s still no telling how long this is going to last. Here’s hoping today goes better.

See, the thing is, I get this stupid cold at almost the exact same time every year. Sometimes it’s more intense than others, and the duration is always a huge question mark. I remember one year I was incredibly sick all through Christmas and New Year’s Day. So much so that I missed all the festivities because I couldn’t muster up the will to get out of bed. At this point, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m allergic to Christmas. I know it’s a ridiculous hypothesis, but the consistency in the timing has to be more than a crazy coincidence. You can say it’s the weather, but the weather has been all over the place over the last ten years. Sometimes it’s freezing cold, sometimes we still haven’t gotten any snow. It’s way too inconsistent to be the cause, so there’s got to be something else.

But I have no idea what the deal is, and that’s really enough mucus-fueled rambling for now.

-Ryan out (*coughs up a lung*)

The longest week ever

It’s finally here! Today marks the day of Super Mario Odyssey‘s release! Wa-hoo!

Making it to Friday has been a bit of a trial, however. First and foremost, I have been having some severe issues with sleeping this week, so I am crazy overtired. Having to spend three hours in a statistics class last night did not help the situation.

Actually, the whole lack of sleep thing is really about the only thing that’s really causing me problems. It started snowing yesterday and now the world is coated in a thin and very slippery sheet of ice, but that’s minimal. I don’t go outside all that often anyway, and I’m good about dressing warmly to deal with the sub-zero temperatures.

Of note is that I also had a mid-term exam in the aforementioned statistics class on Tuesday. Which was a great source of anxiety in the days prior, and probably contributed some to my restlessness on the Sunday night. Monday night I would have slept like a baby if not for the jerkhole what lives below me that has seen fit to start very loud phone/Skype conversations every night at midnight this week. And he won’t stop or talk more quietly no matter how much I stomp on my floor. T_T

I am not completely innocent in my sleep deprivation, either. While I have been kept awake by outside sources (namely that loud-talking downstairs neighbour) for the other nights this week, I went with my brother to the midnight Mario launch at a local retailer last night, which may have not been the wisest course of action. On the plus side, they opened at 11 instead of 12, so with a quick transaction and a short drive, I was home in time to get to bed about the same time as usual. Except for I couldn’t resist cracking open the game case right away and playing a little bit, so my tiredness today is entirely my own fault.

Was it worth it? Meh. The opening scenes and tutorial stage aren’t terribly exciting, so it’s not like I got a whole lot out of that first ten minutes. But at least it’s out of the way and when I start playing in earnest after work, it’s going to be amaaaaaaazing.

Though in reality, I’m probably going to just pass out five minutes in.

(Also important: Ninja Sex Party’s Under The Covers: Volume 2 is out today, and season 2 of Stranger Things is up on Netflix. I really should have taken the day off!)

Book learnt

I wrote a test last night that I was not at all confident about. I’d spent the last week studying madly and despite that, I still found that leading up to and throughout the duration of said test, I was genuinely worried that I would fail.

Then I ended up getting a 90.

I suppose I owe my brain a thank you for not screwing up this time. But I’m going to wait and see how the mid-term goes next week before I do any celebrating.

*update: I scored 85% on the mid-term. Not too shabby!

A problem from the first world

October is the worst time to be taking a course. It’s the only time of the year where doing season-related stuff really feels important, but all my free time is being sapped up by class and assignments and studying. That time is supposed to be wasted on spooky video games and cheesy horror movies that I’ve already seen seventeen times!

Jeez!

(Blogging is also falling way behind, I have like 46 draft posts that I have no time to finish.)

Long time listener, first time writer

Anyone who knows me even just a little should be aware that I’m not really a “participation” kind of guy. In most cases, I much prefer to sit on the sidelines and just watch other people do their thing. Observation makes much more sense to me. I’m told that this is a perfectly normal thing for introverts, and I’ve been happy to live my life in this fashion.

However, once in a while, I will feel an irrepressible urge to get up and be part of something. It’s rare, but it happens.

One of those moments came this week, when listening to the previous week’s episode of the Talk Nintendo Podcast. In it, the boys were discussing recent eShop releases, as they do, and mentioned that they were going to start accepting reader-submitted reviews of eShop games to read on air. Because two guys just can’t play every game, you know?

Normally I would just think this was a cool addition and take no action. But they just happened to mention PAN-PAN, a game that they knew nothing about and had strongly piqued my own curiosity. So I went ahead and bought the game, played through it, and after much deliberation, sent in a tiny review.

And now, my friends, you can listen to my paragraph of thoughts on PAN-PAN being read on Talk Nintendo Episode #53. I have now truly been immortalized on the internet. This is even better than the time I got name dropped on No More Whoppers. Best of all, I even got a nice little thank you email back from the boys, encouraging me to send more micro-reviews in the future. So maybe I will!

Full disclosure: one of my tweets has been read on Talk Nintendo before. But man, it was a friggin’ tweet. It means nothing.

(I was born) Settled down

It’s a week later, and I am about 80% moved into my condo. It’s been quite a process. Basically non-stop work since last Saturday, with a single night off on Wednesday. So this weekend, I’m takin’ ‘er easy and just enjoying my new Fortress of Solitude. Well, tomorrow I’m takin’ ‘er easy. There is still plenty to be done today.

The work that remains is as such:

  • Move my bed in so I can sleep not on the couch
  • Vaccuum again now that all the furniture is built
  • Clean any kitchenware that has not gone through the dishwasher.
  • Sort through all my Xmas baubles and get rid of anything deemed unnecessary.
  • Align as many books as possible on the bookshelf, discard any that don’t fit.
  • Move over any lingering boxes from Mom & Dad’s and sort what will stay or be donated.
  • Find a solution for movie storage
  • Get that friggin’ Dark Souls poster mounted!
  • Dispose of excess furniture (either via Kijiji or donation)
  • Hang posters/picture frames/shelves/etc.
  • Buy food

And that’s about it. Now that the business has been taken care of, here are a bunch of fun photos!

Continue reading (I was born) Settled down