Well its been an epic holiday, but now I've gotta get ready to go back to school. Feh. Life goes on, except with 30+ hours a week dedicated to schoolwork now. Upcoming blog posts about my experiences with Dead Space and Undead Melbourne.
As I conclude this blog post, I will sweep my books into my bag, collect my stationary (to be crammed into my pocket) and buckle my lock to a belt loop, and then, go to sleep.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Fallout New Vegas, Unstoppable and other Escapades
The 16th of January began, as usual, at midnight, when it stopped being the 15th and started being the 16th. I do believe at that very instance I was preoccupied with something on cheezburger network. But not for long, soon I was playing Fallout New Vegas. Sometimes it takes ages to get anywhere in New Vegas, especially on hardcore mode, where crippled limbs need special items to restore them. I do believe I have limped my way through 50% of the game, and of course sometimes combat is slowed to a pathetic crawl, and that's BEFORE V.A.T.S.
Over the course of the game that I've played so far, I have once again discovered that you should just use melee weapons until you find a place to stash your loot, then stash said loot and use your B.F.G. with 80+ ammo and your melee just in case your B.F.G. isn't the best plan. I also made my decisions of betraying 2 out of 3 of the factions you can betray simply because they didn't like the brotherhood of steel. Fallout 3 has given me too much attachment to "Paladins" in power armor with laser gatling guns and suped up powerfists. Just some advice; through consumables it is possible to get +11S +5P +3E +6C +4I +1A all simply by using drugs which have no downsides other than caps and getting addicted to them. It's possible to boost stats more by using consumables like alcohol which lower a stat while boosting others. So strength is clearly quite over rated, followed by Charisma, Perception and Intelligence, all of which can be boosted through the use of Mentats and Party Time Mentats and the additional point of perception from Coyote Tobacco Chew. And for your skills, with damage threshold you are now more likely to want to be competent in weapons which deal lots of damage per hit, like a good melee weapon, and considering lots of places confiscate weapons, you are going to want to put skills into unarmed, or skills into sneak and whatever the weapons you are sneaking in are, considering B.F.G.s like Incinerators are often left at the door. Another unusual choice for the game is a large focus on speech. In fact there are several quests on the strip which can only be accomplished through a speech check or a barter check. And with the addition of magazines it makes more sense to spread skill points more evenly and read a magazine whenever you're just short of meeting a skill check.
Anyway enough about that. I started writing this on, you guessed it, the 16th, and have only just gotten around to finishing it. The reason for this delay is due to the subject of my next blog post.
Yeah anyway that week I also saw Unstoppable which is a movie about 2 guys with metaphorical balls of steel who have the misfortune of being the only people who can stop the speeding juggernaut of a train, who are forced to stop it. It was an alright movie, but what little else I have to say about it is choc full of spoilers, or has left my head considering I saw it several weeks ago. But yeah there are trains and engineers and trains and high speed action and things that make physicists cry out in anguish.
Ahem, on to the "other escapades".
That week I also helped my awesome friend paint his ex-apartment as he moved out, which was interesting, and later on I began the reason this blog post never got finished when I intended it to...
Undead Melbourne
I'll be changing the way I update this blog, with more posts at a time each one focusing on something more specific, hopefully. First up is just what "Undead Melbourne" really is.
Over the course of the game that I've played so far, I have once again discovered that you should just use melee weapons until you find a place to stash your loot, then stash said loot and use your B.F.G. with 80+ ammo and your melee just in case your B.F.G. isn't the best plan. I also made my decisions of betraying 2 out of 3 of the factions you can betray simply because they didn't like the brotherhood of steel. Fallout 3 has given me too much attachment to "Paladins" in power armor with laser gatling guns and suped up powerfists. Just some advice; through consumables it is possible to get +11S +5P +3E +6C +4I +1A all simply by using drugs which have no downsides other than caps and getting addicted to them. It's possible to boost stats more by using consumables like alcohol which lower a stat while boosting others. So strength is clearly quite over rated, followed by Charisma, Perception and Intelligence, all of which can be boosted through the use of Mentats and Party Time Mentats and the additional point of perception from Coyote Tobacco Chew. And for your skills, with damage threshold you are now more likely to want to be competent in weapons which deal lots of damage per hit, like a good melee weapon, and considering lots of places confiscate weapons, you are going to want to put skills into unarmed, or skills into sneak and whatever the weapons you are sneaking in are, considering B.F.G.s like Incinerators are often left at the door. Another unusual choice for the game is a large focus on speech. In fact there are several quests on the strip which can only be accomplished through a speech check or a barter check. And with the addition of magazines it makes more sense to spread skill points more evenly and read a magazine whenever you're just short of meeting a skill check.
Anyway enough about that. I started writing this on, you guessed it, the 16th, and have only just gotten around to finishing it. The reason for this delay is due to the subject of my next blog post.
Yeah anyway that week I also saw Unstoppable which is a movie about 2 guys with metaphorical balls of steel who have the misfortune of being the only people who can stop the speeding juggernaut of a train, who are forced to stop it. It was an alright movie, but what little else I have to say about it is choc full of spoilers, or has left my head considering I saw it several weeks ago. But yeah there are trains and engineers and trains and high speed action and things that make physicists cry out in anguish.
Ahem, on to the "other escapades".
That week I also helped my awesome friend paint his ex-apartment as he moved out, which was interesting, and later on I began the reason this blog post never got finished when I intended it to...
Undead Melbourne
I'll be changing the way I update this blog, with more posts at a time each one focusing on something more specific, hopefully. First up is just what "Undead Melbourne" really is.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Happy New Year!
Yay stuff! Happy New Year!
Yeah I don't like to update my blog more than a few times a month, rather than a few times a week. This way allows me to be lazier, because if I make a blog post nearly every day, when I don't make any for a week it blows, but this way if I don't make any for a week.. its standard. And very often there are periods of up to 7 days were I don't really have a good time to post in my blog, or there's some impending interesting thing looming that I'd just have to reblog about in a days time. And this IS my blog, but it is not facebook, or twitter. This is not me giving you daily updates on me having just made and eaten a sandwich. This is tri-weekly updates of only the more interesting and awesome stuff I have done.
Anyway, speaking of that, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, or whatever. Happy holidays. Eh. And happy new year. And for a few of you, happy birthday too. And yes I am late.
Anyway moving on. Since the last blog post I have (in roughly chronological order) ... gotten more in touch with a few friends, in more ways than one (interpret that as you will perverts ;P), played more teamfortress 2 (derp) and started some MASSIVELY EPIC RANT THREADS AND THE LIKE on the forums, successfully (kinda [nobody said they never wanted me to dm again]) DM'd my first session of 4ED&D (and also discovered a girl who not only wants to play BUT HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN THE REST OF US COMBINED[I think]), gone to a few parties and mostly just hung out with friends and family as well as actually doing a whole bunch of stuff which I can't talk about, and I don't just mean the usual not naming friends stuff, I mean serious secret business. Which of course makes me lol because the secrets aren't damaging to me in the slightest and nor were they obtained in confidence. Except for those that were. Which I am totally not going to even mention ever again. Those conversations never happened.
Also I went out and bought a watermelon. For a friend of course. For their birthday. And it was used as a card. I have weird friends.
Since then I have most recently injured my finger playing bass, attempted to fix the broken zipper on one of my favorite coats and in the end just removing it because... well yeah.
Also right now I'm going to ask for a bit of feed back just on the blog overall, please comment on this post with just your thoughts comments and opinions on the blog.
Yeah I don't like to update my blog more than a few times a month, rather than a few times a week. This way allows me to be lazier, because if I make a blog post nearly every day, when I don't make any for a week it blows, but this way if I don't make any for a week.. its standard. And very often there are periods of up to 7 days were I don't really have a good time to post in my blog, or there's some impending interesting thing looming that I'd just have to reblog about in a days time. And this IS my blog, but it is not facebook, or twitter. This is not me giving you daily updates on me having just made and eaten a sandwich. This is tri-weekly updates of only the more interesting and awesome stuff I have done.
Anyway, speaking of that, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, or whatever. Happy holidays. Eh. And happy new year. And for a few of you, happy birthday too. And yes I am late.
Anyway moving on. Since the last blog post I have (in roughly chronological order) ... gotten more in touch with a few friends, in more ways than one (interpret that as you will perverts ;P), played more teamfortress 2 (derp) and started some MASSIVELY EPIC RANT THREADS AND THE LIKE on the forums, successfully (kinda [nobody said they never wanted me to dm again]) DM'd my first session of 4ED&D (and also discovered a girl who not only wants to play BUT HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN THE REST OF US COMBINED[I think]), gone to a few parties and mostly just hung out with friends and family as well as actually doing a whole bunch of stuff which I can't talk about, and I don't just mean the usual not naming friends stuff, I mean serious secret business. Which of course makes me lol because the secrets aren't damaging to me in the slightest and nor were they obtained in confidence. Except for those that were. Which I am totally not going to even mention ever again. Those conversations never happened.
Also I went out and bought a watermelon. For a friend of course. For their birthday. And it was used as a card. I have weird friends.
Since then I have most recently injured my finger playing bass, attempted to fix the broken zipper on one of my favorite coats and in the end just removing it because... well yeah.
Also right now I'm going to ask for a bit of feed back just on the blog overall, please comment on this post with just your thoughts comments and opinions on the blog.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Tales of metal, and more metal.
Yesterday, I played with the aforementioned band. There was much flailing on strings by me and it was all very inglorious yet, awesome. And in related news the massive blister on my index finger is looking better, the thumb, not so much. I'd say more but it was really just me and some guys playing music, playing more music, loling, playing music, taking a break, and then playing music again.
Also, today, I went to the dentist. Surprisingly no blood was drawn, my regular cleaning went by without incident, and I don't need any fillings, which is surprising how much sugar I eat.
So on both counts, all went better than expected!
And speaking of metal, there is yet another kind of metal that has taken my interest, scrap metal in Team Fortress 2. The mass of weapons that were released a few days ago have had their crafting recipes discovered, dropping their value exponentially. Luckily for me, I scrambled to trade them away, and succeeded before everyone else became aware of the recipes. So, a profiteer is me!
Also, today, I went to the dentist. Surprisingly no blood was drawn, my regular cleaning went by without incident, and I don't need any fillings, which is surprising how much sugar I eat.
So on both counts, all went better than expected!
And speaking of metal, there is yet another kind of metal that has taken my interest, scrap metal in Team Fortress 2. The mass of weapons that were released a few days ago have had their crafting recipes discovered, dropping their value exponentially. Luckily for me, I scrambled to trade them away, and succeeded before everyone else became aware of the recipes. So, a profiteer is me!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Computer Games Boot Camp, and other stuff
From the 8th to the 12th, I attended computer games boot camp part2; aftershock. This being the sequel to an event earlier in the year where I went to Monash University and listened to lectures and played games competitively or for fun and met interesting people. This was pretty much more of the same. For the sake of.. stuff, I generally avoid mentioning people by name, but I'll make an exception. I must commend and thank Andrew Owen for all of the work and effort he's put into Computer Games Boot Camp and continues to put into it. I'm exhausted just attending the damn thing and I can only imagine what its like for Andrew Owen. So all I can say is thanks. Also a shout out to everyone at Level Three and Green Tube LAN. Anyway moving on.
There were some cool presentations, a massive Tron LAN, tournaments for Brawl, CoD, Street Fighter, Tekken, Goldeneye and more, but mostly, the best things there were the people. I regret that the main event is so overcrowded, as it leaves a lot less time to hang out with awesome people.
Aside from that, I had some other things happening immediately after, which is why I hadn't made a blog post yet.
So far since then, I've played 1 session of AD&D, 1 of basic D&D, 1 of Ninja Burger, dismantled magic decks and helped build some new Elder Dragon Highlander (Generals) decks, as well as sorted probably another 500 cards.
Also Team Fortress 2's Christmas Update shipped yesterday, in all of its glory. I won't talk much about it here for fear of accidentally going on a rant. All I'll say more on the topic is that the player base isn't just split, but fragmented; rarely do two people share the same opinion and verdict on more than one update.
Other games I've played include Singularity, which is just like Half Life crossed with Bioshock, except instead of a resonance cascade, you have the singularity, and instead of plasmids you have the time manipulation device. You have the mindless once human creatures who suicidally rush you, the militant force trying to crush you (who's weapons you take), upgrade stations, a revolver, a sniper, a grenade launcher, a shotgun, a minigun, a rocket launcher, telekinesis, exploding barrels, non exploding barrels, blueprints and technology which when found allow you to upgrade yourself and your weapons at upgrade stations, and a character with no voice, no face, who always wears gloves, and almost no cinematic cut scenes except at the twist.
In upcoming events I'll shortly be playing with the other half of the band I'm in, for the very first time.
Until next time, and Happy Holidays!
There were some cool presentations, a massive Tron LAN, tournaments for Brawl, CoD, Street Fighter, Tekken, Goldeneye and more, but mostly, the best things there were the people. I regret that the main event is so overcrowded, as it leaves a lot less time to hang out with awesome people.
Aside from that, I had some other things happening immediately after, which is why I hadn't made a blog post yet.
So far since then, I've played 1 session of AD&D, 1 of basic D&D, 1 of Ninja Burger, dismantled magic decks and helped build some new Elder Dragon Highlander (Generals) decks, as well as sorted probably another 500 cards.
Also Team Fortress 2's Christmas Update shipped yesterday, in all of its glory. I won't talk much about it here for fear of accidentally going on a rant. All I'll say more on the topic is that the player base isn't just split, but fragmented; rarely do two people share the same opinion and verdict on more than one update.
Other games I've played include Singularity, which is just like Half Life crossed with Bioshock, except instead of a resonance cascade, you have the singularity, and instead of plasmids you have the time manipulation device. You have the mindless once human creatures who suicidally rush you, the militant force trying to crush you (who's weapons you take), upgrade stations, a revolver, a sniper, a grenade launcher, a shotgun, a minigun, a rocket launcher, telekinesis, exploding barrels, non exploding barrels, blueprints and technology which when found allow you to upgrade yourself and your weapons at upgrade stations, and a character with no voice, no face, who always wears gloves, and almost no cinematic cut scenes except at the twist.
In upcoming events I'll shortly be playing with the other half of the band I'm in, for the very first time.
Until next time, and Happy Holidays!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The end of Spring
Ah what a wonderful day, the birds are cowering in their nests, and its hailing. Yup, IT MUST BE SUMMER! Welcome to Melbourne! So yeah for those of you who don't know, Melbourne is toted as having the most unpredictably irritating whether of all time. Although nowhere near as extreme as other places, or going through such a wide range of extremes in one day, it is horribly unpredictable, and quoted as "having 4 seasons in one day, all of them being shit". Although it only rains about 20 days a year, most people keep an umbrella with them at all times, one in their bag, or at their office, or just walk around carrying at their side; "I'm not paranoid, JUST YOU WAIT TIL IT RAINS", lo and behold, in the middle of spring, out of nowhere, a hail storm. Who's paranoid (but very very dry) now?
But enough about the shitty weather, I've lived in worse, but none quite as irritating.
So a few days ago I went out and played laser tag for 2 hours, in moderate heat, in warm clothes. Was not fun. I finished 2nd last each time, except when I finished dead last. Of course it would have been better with less/different rules. I like to take advantage of my height, and what little athletic prowess I have, in ways such as scaling constructed walls to get to a superior vantage point, or vaulting over short obstacles to quickly get out of the open. But no, the cursed rules were; No running, No anything-but-standing, No touching obstacles and No firing guns one handed. That last one might not seem like much of an issue, but each time I managed to trick the sensor into thinking my hand second hand was covering the barrel, I managed to tag someone. Over the shoulder, around a corner using a wall, sideways using my leg; all times were kills. Also the actual hit-zones were annoying, and that's just me being bad, but I landed plenty of hits on people that were outside the target zone, like on their leg, or JUST missing the small target zones. Next time it shall be paintball... and we'll see how well I do when I don't glow like a really tall (tall comparatively to everyone else, not tall for Christmas tree tall) Christmas tree, and have my height count for something other than making it easier to see me.
Also since the last blog post, was the celebration of my brothers birthday, a month later than it actually occurred, it was epic, there was cake, and it was good. There was also the long awaited union of 2 of my friends as "boyfriend and girlfriend" as well as a split of another long standing couple.
Team Fortress 2 also released their public beta, I got into Fallout New Vegas, and me and my friends discovered lackey, the best online CCG medium ever of all time.
Next blog post shall be after DnD tomorrow, the impending CGBC, and the first real meeting of my "band".
But enough about the shitty weather, I've lived in worse, but none quite as irritating.
So a few days ago I went out and played laser tag for 2 hours, in moderate heat, in warm clothes. Was not fun. I finished 2nd last each time, except when I finished dead last. Of course it would have been better with less/different rules. I like to take advantage of my height, and what little athletic prowess I have, in ways such as scaling constructed walls to get to a superior vantage point, or vaulting over short obstacles to quickly get out of the open. But no, the cursed rules were; No running, No anything-but-standing, No touching obstacles and No firing guns one handed. That last one might not seem like much of an issue, but each time I managed to trick the sensor into thinking my hand second hand was covering the barrel, I managed to tag someone. Over the shoulder, around a corner using a wall, sideways using my leg; all times were kills. Also the actual hit-zones were annoying, and that's just me being bad, but I landed plenty of hits on people that were outside the target zone, like on their leg, or JUST missing the small target zones. Next time it shall be paintball... and we'll see how well I do when I don't glow like a really tall (tall comparatively to everyone else, not tall for Christmas tree tall) Christmas tree, and have my height count for something other than making it easier to see me.
Also since the last blog post, was the celebration of my brothers birthday, a month later than it actually occurred, it was epic, there was cake, and it was good. There was also the long awaited union of 2 of my friends as "boyfriend and girlfriend" as well as a split of another long standing couple.
Team Fortress 2 also released their public beta, I got into Fallout New Vegas, and me and my friends discovered lackey, the best online CCG medium ever of all time.
Next blog post shall be after DnD tomorrow, the impending CGBC, and the first real meeting of my "band".
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Happy Happy Fun Times!
Hello everybody!
It was recently brought to my attention, by several people in fact, that people actually check this!
I apologize for not posting in a while, you see the problem is, when I created this blog, I created it with the intention of posting updates on all the cool and crazy and wild stuff I do. Unfortunately, when I'm doing crazy cool wild and fun stuff, I'm too busy to blog, and generally I wouldn't remember enough details to make a blog post later so I'd just take the lazy procrastinators way out and play video games, like any teenager should. So yeah long time no post.
In recent news I finished my last exam a few weeks ago, so I am nearly free of all obligations of anything at all whatsoever, including and not limited to waking hours.
Well I do believe I owe you guys some catching up....
The last blog post I made was 120 days ago, and since then, not much has changed, but a lot has happened.
In these 120 days, I've lost a few friends, but in the process realized who my true friends are, but I won't go into that with any names or details because the people involved are known by the readers of this blog. I have also obtained, on semi permanent loan, a veritable pile of Xbox 360 games, and about $10,000 in cards from various TCGs (Magic the Gathering, World of Warcraft, Medabots, Digimon, Neopets, Duel Masters, Dungeons and Dragons and a few more). All I can say is that I miss my floor. I also applied to, and got accepted into Mensa Australia, and my application for the Nation Youth Science Forum got rejected. I also saw quite a few movies, which in order of awesome are... Scott Pilgrim, RED, Goemon, The Loved Ones, The A-Team, She's out of your League, How to Train your Dragon and a few more which I can't remember, probably because they sucked in comparison and just don't register. I also finished watching all of Supernatural and How I met your mother, and started watching Scrubs. I also performed in the schools musical breakfast in 3 ensembles, something I'll only have to do once ever again, became the co-president of the SRC because everyone else left, started an eco-group at the school and realized that the schools management is full of douches who care about image more than impact and would rather fund the Gay Straight Alliance (no offense to anyone [except the management], but they only spend money on posters) than environmental activism. All of that and also so much more.
On a more recent note, I finished school, learned how to play electric bass (its an Ibanez 83[yes that means its older than me, well done]) and received my invitation to Computer Games Boot Camp 2010 part 2.
Future posts may have hyperlinks, images, videos, or even paragraphing. But its 5:15 AM as of this sentence and though not tired, I still have to fall asleep and wake up in the morning so spending time on stuff like that is not a luxury I can afford right now. I might do another blog post just dedicated to the cool and or obscure stuff that I didn't mention like how I finished bioshock 2 hardest difficulty in one sitting, or the pirate parade, or the epic Xbox 360 system link that my friends and I set up, or how for a week one of my friends was living here as of a family feud, or my brothers lego construct. So yeah expect a new blog post, or even several, each one elaborating on something specific.
Sam
PS: If anyone wants elaboration on anything mentioned, just say so in the comments. Nothing is taboo.
It was recently brought to my attention, by several people in fact, that people actually check this!
I apologize for not posting in a while, you see the problem is, when I created this blog, I created it with the intention of posting updates on all the cool and crazy and wild stuff I do. Unfortunately, when I'm doing crazy cool wild and fun stuff, I'm too busy to blog, and generally I wouldn't remember enough details to make a blog post later so I'd just take the lazy procrastinators way out and play video games, like any teenager should. So yeah long time no post.
In recent news I finished my last exam a few weeks ago, so I am nearly free of all obligations of anything at all whatsoever, including and not limited to waking hours.
Well I do believe I owe you guys some catching up....
The last blog post I made was 120 days ago, and since then, not much has changed, but a lot has happened.
In these 120 days, I've lost a few friends, but in the process realized who my true friends are, but I won't go into that with any names or details because the people involved are known by the readers of this blog. I have also obtained, on semi permanent loan, a veritable pile of Xbox 360 games, and about $10,000 in cards from various TCGs (Magic the Gathering, World of Warcraft, Medabots, Digimon, Neopets, Duel Masters, Dungeons and Dragons and a few more). All I can say is that I miss my floor. I also applied to, and got accepted into Mensa Australia, and my application for the Nation Youth Science Forum got rejected. I also saw quite a few movies, which in order of awesome are... Scott Pilgrim, RED, Goemon, The Loved Ones, The A-Team, She's out of your League, How to Train your Dragon and a few more which I can't remember, probably because they sucked in comparison and just don't register. I also finished watching all of Supernatural and How I met your mother, and started watching Scrubs. I also performed in the schools musical breakfast in 3 ensembles, something I'll only have to do once ever again, became the co-president of the SRC because everyone else left, started an eco-group at the school and realized that the schools management is full of douches who care about image more than impact and would rather fund the Gay Straight Alliance (no offense to anyone [except the management], but they only spend money on posters) than environmental activism. All of that and also so much more.
On a more recent note, I finished school, learned how to play electric bass (its an Ibanez 83[yes that means its older than me, well done]) and received my invitation to Computer Games Boot Camp 2010 part 2.
Future posts may have hyperlinks, images, videos, or even paragraphing. But its 5:15 AM as of this sentence and though not tired, I still have to fall asleep and wake up in the morning so spending time on stuff like that is not a luxury I can afford right now. I might do another blog post just dedicated to the cool and or obscure stuff that I didn't mention like how I finished bioshock 2 hardest difficulty in one sitting, or the pirate parade, or the epic Xbox 360 system link that my friends and I set up, or how for a week one of my friends was living here as of a family feud, or my brothers lego construct. So yeah expect a new blog post, or even several, each one elaborating on something specific.
Sam
PS: If anyone wants elaboration on anything mentioned, just say so in the comments. Nothing is taboo.
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