Long overdue post
Ok it has been 4 months since my last post that is a lot of things to try to remember and post about lol. Well I hope that everyone is doing well for those I have not been in contact with these past couple of months. I’ll try to post more regularly but you know how that goes. So on to the big update.
April
I went through my game tote and pulled out some old Berserk cards I had and found 2 booster boxes that I hadn’t opened yet so I opened them up and decided to try to find more cards to complete the whole collection. I then started to translate the cards to see what they do and how to play which led me into translating all of them and creating digital copies with English text. So far I have about 180 cards translated and about 80 of them in a digital format with English text.
I had to choose a 9/80 schedule for work through the summer by the end of this month. I ended up choosing schedule one which started on May 11th and ended on August 14th. Basically I work 9+ hour days except Fridays where 1 week I work 8 hours and the next week I get that Friday off. It was kind of an odd schedule but allowed me to have some of my Fridays off without using my vacation time.
May
On the 6th I was feeling really sick and took the day off not sure if it was a mild flu or food poisoning of some kind but it was not fun.
Maer and her kids Duncan and Meghan came to stay for part of the summer. I had 5 days off for the Memorial Day weekend I don’t think we did too much just go out and shop some, go out to eat a few places, and play some games. We found more of the find the object type puzzle games and played them on the projector with laser pointers. There were a few good games and some not so good games.
June
The bathroom sink broke sometime in here the part that was broken was the drain plug I had to pull it out and put in a mesh drain catcher. For now that will fix it since the part that broke was internal and I’d have to replace the whole pipe under the sink to fix it.
Everyone caught a cold that I brought home from work this put us out for about a week or so. Not long after we all got better I saw a sales add at HH Gregg for a touch screen MP4 player for $50 we went over there and picked up a couple of them. They turned out to be a pretty nice purchase I put some of my anime MP3s on mine and all of Berserk after I converted them to the right video format.
My next big purchase was an Xbox 360. I’ve been looking at getting one for a couple years now and wanted to get Rock Band 2 with it. I bought the Arcade version and bought a 60GB off eBay for cheap. Me and the kids played RB 2 for awhile and put together the band “Kitten Wiz” (I had this name picked out when RB 1 came out).
I caught CM and Rich on Xbox live chat not long after I started the system up but sadly I couldn’t reply back vocally because I didn’t have a mic. I was able to reply back some with text but it became too much of a pain. So the next day I went out and bought the headset and text pad combo pack. I was able to get everything for just under $600 which was the target range I was looking at spending.
I also finally broke down and bought a TV too I had been looking around for awhile but never could find one in the price range, size, & quality that I wanted. I finally decided on one at Wal-Mart on the other side of town (the closest Wal-Mart’s didn’t have them in stock) it was a 37” Vizio and I got it for just under $600.
We started playing Lost Crown game again since Duncan never had a chance to play. We just had enough time to play through the whole game before they left at the end of the July
Dona and her sister came up from Evansville to visit us for a couple days we didn’t do anything major during their visit just go out to eat and other basic things. We did get a visit from my neighbors during this time so I had to extend my dining room table for the first time to get all 8 of us around it. It was pretty tight to get around the edges but we were able to all fit around it.
On the 17th I think was when MTG came out on the Xbox. I attempted to download it but the site was down for upgrades so had to wait the next day to get it. I played it off and on and unlocked the red deck it took awhile to get used to the controls and the decks though. One Major problem was that you can’t make your own customized deck you have to use their pre-made decks.
At one point I saw a sale on NewEgg.com for an Acer 22” FP at $140. I ordered one for myself and a PCI video capture device so I could connect the XBOX to my PC. I got the FP in and it worked out great it was so clear and bright compared to my older 17” FP which you can tell was fading and yellowed out next to the new FP. The capture card on the other hand did not work at all so I had to return it and I ended up ordering an external USB capture device which worked out much better and had Digital TV capabilities. After seeing my new flat panel monitor Maer wanted one too so I ordered another one for her.
July
The towel rack in the bathroom broke I had to go out and buy another one to put back up on the wall.
On the 4th of July the City fireworks were too far away to see so we decided to go to Applebees and on the drive there we could see all the neighborhood division setting off their own firework displays. On the way back home we parked in the parking lot in front of the Blockbuster and watched the fireworks in the area neighborhoods for awhile. Then we went back home and went through the neon sparklers and the 3 foot long sparklers I had bought a few weeks ago. The neon ones were pretty cool they had different colors and effects for each color.
Duncan’s GF Skye came up to visit us for about a week. We played some Rock Band 2, went out to eat to a few different places, and went to the ZOO to see the new African Exhibit which was pretty nicely done.
I finally set up an appointment with the eye doctor to get tested and buy new glasses. They messed up on my prescription the first time and I had to go back and get them re-made. I think there is still a problem with them but it may just be an adjustment issue I still need to go back to have them look at it.
My 1 month free gold subscription for Xbox live had ran out so I ordered a 12 month gold card off eBay for $39.99 which was a pretty good price so now I don’t have to worry about that for another year.
I went to the Caylor reunion in Portland not to bad a turn out probably about 40-50 people or so showed up. I was going to take a watermelon that we had bought a while back but it turned out to be bad so I went out and bought a fruit dish to take.
At one point we went to Target and I was very tempted to buy the Firebomber pack and a FAT pack of the M10 MTG cards, but I resisted.
At the end of the month Maer and the kids went back home.
August
While looking through the Berserk forums for cards I was missing I came across a post about a new set of Berserk Gashapon that was coming out. The problem was they came in boxes of 15 random figures and there are 13 figures all together with one being extra rare. So chances of me getting a complete set were not good. They were selling them for about $80 US so I went on eBay and found a guy that was selling the complete set for $65 so I bought them. They are pretty good quality a lot better than what I thought they would have been.
I finally got my MTG promo card from buying the Xbox MTG game. It came with an insert that I can take into a certified store and receive 2 free starter packs. I have not had the chance to go to the local store that is registered and pick them up yet.
I went to the 100th anniversary Platt Reunion and it was pretty nice about 130 people showed up and I saw a lot of cousins I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a very hot day but there was a slight breeze that helped cool us down a bit. We normally rent out a community building at the local park in Pennville and just have lunch but this year it was an all day event. They had a lunch carry in (I brought a big bowl of fresh mixed fruits), custom Platt family T-shirts, cotton candy machine (I helped with this part), snow cone machine, homemade I cream machines, Bingo, new and old photos of the family posted around the room, a display room with old quilts, pillows, dolls, and other memorabilia, and an amusing ride that was designed and built by a cousin of mine called the wild horse ride. Basically it was an old trailer stripped down with bad shocks put underneath, a phone pole cut to the length of the trailer with carpet covering it, ropes tied around the pole for people to hold on, and being pulled by a golf cart. It could hold 4-5 people and was pretty amusing to watch bounce around as he drove it around the park. So all in all it was a pretty good gathering and everyone had fun.
While looking through my tote of games for MTG cards I came across some Battletech cards that I had bought back in 1996 that I never opened. I opened them up and went through the cards the art work was not to bad for the time period but the game play was what caught my attention it was not like any other CCG games I played. It was an odd mix of other CCG games put together that actually worked out well game play wise. The bonus with this game is you can play with large numbers of people if you want so an 8 way game with different houses and clans would work. I started looking around for cards and found out the set was discontinued in 1998 when FASA sold the franchise off. The good thing there is still a major fan following for the game so finding cards is still doable. I started looking on eBay and found some people selling sealed booster boxes, singles, and small groups of cards. I’ve picked up a box of the original limited set, boxes of the first 3 booster sets, and a couple groups of cards that were being sold. In the process of looking around I found an old Yahoo group that was still active and they had a few interesting links. The first one I found was a link to an article about a new MechWarrior game being created (http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002164p1.html ). This is really awesome news and I hope they can find the right publisher for the project. The second link I found was to a program called LackeyCCG it is basically like Apprentice but more programmable and has a wider base of CCG games. They had a Battletech plug-in so now I can see all the cards and play the game online and this also gives me a way to create a way to play the Berserk card translations I am working on. I have done some testing with the software and I think it will work, but I may have to contact the creator to add in a couple new commands since Berserk has a unique feature that isn’t used in other CCG games.
My allergies have been pretty bad the past couple months usually August is pretty bad for me but this started back in July. It could be from the mild summer we have been having, but also could be my central air vents need to be cleaned out.
Well that is the majority of what has been going on with me these past 4 months. I’m sure there are things missing, but that is the bulk of what has been going on with me. Once again I’ll try to update more often but things just keep getting busier for me so most likely will be awhile before the next post.
April
I went through my game tote and pulled out some old Berserk cards I had and found 2 booster boxes that I hadn’t opened yet so I opened them up and decided to try to find more cards to complete the whole collection. I then started to translate the cards to see what they do and how to play which led me into translating all of them and creating digital copies with English text. So far I have about 180 cards translated and about 80 of them in a digital format with English text.
I had to choose a 9/80 schedule for work through the summer by the end of this month. I ended up choosing schedule one which started on May 11th and ended on August 14th. Basically I work 9+ hour days except Fridays where 1 week I work 8 hours and the next week I get that Friday off. It was kind of an odd schedule but allowed me to have some of my Fridays off without using my vacation time.
May
On the 6th I was feeling really sick and took the day off not sure if it was a mild flu or food poisoning of some kind but it was not fun.
Maer and her kids Duncan and Meghan came to stay for part of the summer. I had 5 days off for the Memorial Day weekend I don’t think we did too much just go out and shop some, go out to eat a few places, and play some games. We found more of the find the object type puzzle games and played them on the projector with laser pointers. There were a few good games and some not so good games.
June
The bathroom sink broke sometime in here the part that was broken was the drain plug I had to pull it out and put in a mesh drain catcher. For now that will fix it since the part that broke was internal and I’d have to replace the whole pipe under the sink to fix it.
Everyone caught a cold that I brought home from work this put us out for about a week or so. Not long after we all got better I saw a sales add at HH Gregg for a touch screen MP4 player for $50 we went over there and picked up a couple of them. They turned out to be a pretty nice purchase I put some of my anime MP3s on mine and all of Berserk after I converted them to the right video format.
My next big purchase was an Xbox 360. I’ve been looking at getting one for a couple years now and wanted to get Rock Band 2 with it. I bought the Arcade version and bought a 60GB off eBay for cheap. Me and the kids played RB 2 for awhile and put together the band “Kitten Wiz” (I had this name picked out when RB 1 came out).
I caught CM and Rich on Xbox live chat not long after I started the system up but sadly I couldn’t reply back vocally because I didn’t have a mic. I was able to reply back some with text but it became too much of a pain. So the next day I went out and bought the headset and text pad combo pack. I was able to get everything for just under $600 which was the target range I was looking at spending.
I also finally broke down and bought a TV too I had been looking around for awhile but never could find one in the price range, size, & quality that I wanted. I finally decided on one at Wal-Mart on the other side of town (the closest Wal-Mart’s didn’t have them in stock) it was a 37” Vizio and I got it for just under $600.
We started playing Lost Crown game again since Duncan never had a chance to play. We just had enough time to play through the whole game before they left at the end of the July
Dona and her sister came up from Evansville to visit us for a couple days we didn’t do anything major during their visit just go out to eat and other basic things. We did get a visit from my neighbors during this time so I had to extend my dining room table for the first time to get all 8 of us around it. It was pretty tight to get around the edges but we were able to all fit around it.
On the 17th I think was when MTG came out on the Xbox. I attempted to download it but the site was down for upgrades so had to wait the next day to get it. I played it off and on and unlocked the red deck it took awhile to get used to the controls and the decks though. One Major problem was that you can’t make your own customized deck you have to use their pre-made decks.
At one point I saw a sale on NewEgg.com for an Acer 22” FP at $140. I ordered one for myself and a PCI video capture device so I could connect the XBOX to my PC. I got the FP in and it worked out great it was so clear and bright compared to my older 17” FP which you can tell was fading and yellowed out next to the new FP. The capture card on the other hand did not work at all so I had to return it and I ended up ordering an external USB capture device which worked out much better and had Digital TV capabilities. After seeing my new flat panel monitor Maer wanted one too so I ordered another one for her.
July
The towel rack in the bathroom broke I had to go out and buy another one to put back up on the wall.
On the 4th of July the City fireworks were too far away to see so we decided to go to Applebees and on the drive there we could see all the neighborhood division setting off their own firework displays. On the way back home we parked in the parking lot in front of the Blockbuster and watched the fireworks in the area neighborhoods for awhile. Then we went back home and went through the neon sparklers and the 3 foot long sparklers I had bought a few weeks ago. The neon ones were pretty cool they had different colors and effects for each color.
Duncan’s GF Skye came up to visit us for about a week. We played some Rock Band 2, went out to eat to a few different places, and went to the ZOO to see the new African Exhibit which was pretty nicely done.
I finally set up an appointment with the eye doctor to get tested and buy new glasses. They messed up on my prescription the first time and I had to go back and get them re-made. I think there is still a problem with them but it may just be an adjustment issue I still need to go back to have them look at it.
My 1 month free gold subscription for Xbox live had ran out so I ordered a 12 month gold card off eBay for $39.99 which was a pretty good price so now I don’t have to worry about that for another year.
I went to the Caylor reunion in Portland not to bad a turn out probably about 40-50 people or so showed up. I was going to take a watermelon that we had bought a while back but it turned out to be bad so I went out and bought a fruit dish to take.
At one point we went to Target and I was very tempted to buy the Firebomber pack and a FAT pack of the M10 MTG cards, but I resisted.
At the end of the month Maer and the kids went back home.
August
While looking through the Berserk forums for cards I was missing I came across a post about a new set of Berserk Gashapon that was coming out. The problem was they came in boxes of 15 random figures and there are 13 figures all together with one being extra rare. So chances of me getting a complete set were not good. They were selling them for about $80 US so I went on eBay and found a guy that was selling the complete set for $65 so I bought them. They are pretty good quality a lot better than what I thought they would have been.
I finally got my MTG promo card from buying the Xbox MTG game. It came with an insert that I can take into a certified store and receive 2 free starter packs. I have not had the chance to go to the local store that is registered and pick them up yet.
I went to the 100th anniversary Platt Reunion and it was pretty nice about 130 people showed up and I saw a lot of cousins I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a very hot day but there was a slight breeze that helped cool us down a bit. We normally rent out a community building at the local park in Pennville and just have lunch but this year it was an all day event. They had a lunch carry in (I brought a big bowl of fresh mixed fruits), custom Platt family T-shirts, cotton candy machine (I helped with this part), snow cone machine, homemade I cream machines, Bingo, new and old photos of the family posted around the room, a display room with old quilts, pillows, dolls, and other memorabilia, and an amusing ride that was designed and built by a cousin of mine called the wild horse ride. Basically it was an old trailer stripped down with bad shocks put underneath, a phone pole cut to the length of the trailer with carpet covering it, ropes tied around the pole for people to hold on, and being pulled by a golf cart. It could hold 4-5 people and was pretty amusing to watch bounce around as he drove it around the park. So all in all it was a pretty good gathering and everyone had fun.
While looking through my tote of games for MTG cards I came across some Battletech cards that I had bought back in 1996 that I never opened. I opened them up and went through the cards the art work was not to bad for the time period but the game play was what caught my attention it was not like any other CCG games I played. It was an odd mix of other CCG games put together that actually worked out well game play wise. The bonus with this game is you can play with large numbers of people if you want so an 8 way game with different houses and clans would work. I started looking around for cards and found out the set was discontinued in 1998 when FASA sold the franchise off. The good thing there is still a major fan following for the game so finding cards is still doable. I started looking on eBay and found some people selling sealed booster boxes, singles, and small groups of cards. I’ve picked up a box of the original limited set, boxes of the first 3 booster sets, and a couple groups of cards that were being sold. In the process of looking around I found an old Yahoo group that was still active and they had a few interesting links. The first one I found was a link to an article about a new MechWarrior game being created (http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002164p1.html ). This is really awesome news and I hope they can find the right publisher for the project. The second link I found was to a program called LackeyCCG it is basically like Apprentice but more programmable and has a wider base of CCG games. They had a Battletech plug-in so now I can see all the cards and play the game online and this also gives me a way to create a way to play the Berserk card translations I am working on. I have done some testing with the software and I think it will work, but I may have to contact the creator to add in a couple new commands since Berserk has a unique feature that isn’t used in other CCG games.
My allergies have been pretty bad the past couple months usually August is pretty bad for me but this started back in July. It could be from the mild summer we have been having, but also could be my central air vents need to be cleaned out.
Well that is the majority of what has been going on with me these past 4 months. I’m sure there are things missing, but that is the bulk of what has been going on with me. Once again I’ll try to update more often but things just keep getting busier for me so most likely will be awhile before the next post.