Obligatory Feb post

It is the last day of February 2015.

Merry Christmas 2014

Yadda, yadda.

Be Thankful

Have a great day everyone and be thankful.

Broken hearts

Christmas 2013

Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Let the shopping commence.

Obligatory October Post

I am alive.
It's Halloween.

Be Thankful... Thanksgiving 2012

I am not dead and I am not playing Diablo 3

So quit asking unless you are going to buy me a copy of Diablo 3.

And seriously, as I've tweeted, my garden is taking up a lot of time this year.  Outside of my family, my interests are Green Bay Packers > Gaming > Gardening.  Spring is a busy time for the latter and I've up-scaled my gardening this year (pretend I have like maxed my farming skill in the MMO known as RL).

A Few Thoughts on the Super Bowl

It has been a long time since I last watched the Green Bay Packers in a Super Bowl.  So long in fact, that the last time it happened, most people still liked Brett Favre.  Two teams and three retirements later, Favre is a distant memory.  The Packers have a new ace in town: Aaron Rodgers.  Super Bowl XLV will usher in a new era of Packers football.  By this time tomorrow night, the janitor at the Packers Hall of Fame will be dusting off the pedestal for Lombardi trophy #4 (how ironic).

Overconfident you might say?  No, what would you expect from a Cheeshead?  For me not to be confident that my team is going to win?  Here are some bullet points to chew on:

• The Packers have not trailed by more than 7 points in any game this entire season, including the Playoffs. 
• The Packers lost their six games by a total of 20 points, not losing a single game by more than 4.  
• Of those six losses, most came down to the final play.
• The Packers played one of the toughest schedules this year of any team in the NFL.
• The Packers went ON THE ROAD and beat the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeded teams in the NFC playoffs to advance to the Super Bowl.
• The Steelers probably didn't anticipate the Packers having a running game.  The Steelers are most certainly sleeping on James Starks.  And while James Starks is not the next Barry Sanders, he has shown a spark that no other Packer running back has this year.  He could single handedly break this game wide open running the ball well which will lead to Aaron Rodgers picking apart the Steelers defense with the play action. 
• Unlike last years match up with the Steelers, the Packers have Sam Shields this year, easily one of the top cover corners in the league.  Big Ben will find it very difficult to throw against this years Packers because Sam Shields talent allows the Packers to blitz freely or drop extra men into coverage elsewhere.
• Big Ben is known for shrugging off would be tacklers and creating big plays outside the pocket. And the same thing was said about Michael Vick this year.  The Packers played him and beat Vick twice this year, forcing him into being mainly a pocket passer and wrapping up their tackles on him every time.  I anticipate the same thing when the Packers get to Big Ben.
• Oh and the Packers are missing 14 starter-caliber players to injuries and yet proved they had and still have amazing depth at every position other than running back (which may be changing, see my Starks comments above).  Imagine this team next year.

My actual prediction?  The Packers win by double digits.

Out of steam

I've been out of steam lately and haven't been posting much.  I was planning to do some stuff for all of 2011, but I haven't gotten around to it.  I was thinking about moving to a daily posting schedule.  For example, I'd have like Minecraft Mondays, Indie Tuesdays, What I'm Playing Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday, and maybe even Frisky Friday!

Also, I want to redesign the site layout again.

Any spare time I do have I am dedicating to either Minecraft or the backlog of singleplayer games I have piled up in Steam.  I finished Bioshock 2 and have moved onto The Witcher.  I have Dragon Age and a ton of other games to get to.

I think for the time being I will just go with the flow and see what happens.  I want to get this site back on track at some point.  Hell, I may even get around to mentioning the Packers are in the Super Bowl.

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

Identify this freaky spider I found outside my house!

Thanks for the help!

My son turned one and other things I did in August 2010: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

August was the month that my son turned one year old. It amazes me how fast time flies with children. It feels like only yesterday when I was welcoming "the dude" (as we call him) into the world. He can walk (run), talk (ask repeatedly for mom), and sleep (for short periods).

It's been a long first year to be honest. Our son has only slept through the night a handful of the time. He fought acid reflux, viral infections, and ear infections for the entirety of his first year. His birthday present was a trip into surgery for tubes in his ears (which helped finally get rid of months-long ear infections). It is kind of amazing to think my wife and I have gone almost an entire year without more than a few hours of sleep per night.

So, as I look at my /Played time for August, it echos my entire year: I play the same number of hours per month as I used to play in a single weekend (day even). However, he is a cool kid; pictures to prove it:

I have embedded the new What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying spreadsheet for June below. The overall spreadsheet (includes previous months) can be found here.

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Game of the Month

NONE. I chased my son around all month instead :)

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/Played

Bioshock

I finally got around to beating Bioshock. The setting is absolutely stunning with an amazing story. I am unsure why I didn't get into it the first go around. I elected to save all of the little girls, so was greeted with the "happy ending". I hit up youtube for the "not-happy ending" and was like "meh". When Bioshock 2 goes on sale for under $10, I am all over it.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

It's Battlefield and a great game. I put a good amount of time this month into unlocking all the weapons. Now I am working towards getting Bronze Stars (25 kills) with each weapon. Also, working on my spreadsheet each month, I realize I need to play this game A LOT more to justify its initial cost.

Left 4 Dead 2

The parrot on my shoulder says: "...working on my spreadsheet each month, I realize I need to play this game A LOT more to justify its initial cost." I love the Bridge finale for "The Parish" campaign. It's everything I want in the zombie apocalypse.

Freedom Force

For $1.87 I didn't expect much from the game. After about an hour of play though, I'm bored with ot. I thought it would move faster (being a Super Hero game and all), but I'm finding it to have a glacial pace and it feels constrained. I will give it a better shot at some point. Any tips?

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/Paid

Total spent this Month: $0.00
My Value Rating: n/a

I made no gaming purchases in August.

More than a one-day story

First, see this post on Reddit.
Next, read the news story.
Last, when you are playing Starcraft 2 tonight, remember this guy and his friend who will now be playing alone.

matdevdug, your friend is more than a one-day story.

Time flys, 10 years

Ten years ago I was just leaving high school on a journey to the great state of Texas for military basic training.  To be honest, I was a little bit scared (too much Full Metal Jacket filling my head). Ten years later, I wouldn't trade my military career for anything and the FMJ nightmares are all gone now that I've met R. Lee Ermy in real life and realized he's a pretty cool cat.

Also, ten years ago as of yesterday, Diablo 2 was released.  Happy belated birthday!

Hmmmmm... it has been a year

Just realized that it has been a year since I posted this bit of news.  Amazing how time flies.

And to prove he's mine, here's a pic:

Does the Green Bay Packers outfit give it away?

I'd Hate to be Brett Favre Right Now

Ouch, Brett Favre just ended another season after throwing a big-time interception. This has to hurt.

And of course everyone is going to blame Favre, not the six fumbles, poor pass protection, or poor officiating.

I don't see him smiling like this tomorrow.

Looking Back on 2009, Heartless' Predictions Reviewed

Its that magical time of year where I get to review my predictions for the previous year. Read my original predictions post here.  My commentary is after the jump:

In The Year 2010, Heartless' Predictions

Its nearly 2010 and without further hesitation, here are my predictions:

1. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be sold or shut down by EA.

2. Star Wars: The Old Republic will NOT launch this year.

3. Already launched MMOGs, not named World of Warcraft, will have a rough year.

4. Newer, quality F2P games will storm the market and one will challenge WoW for the mainstream playerbase.

5. WoW will remain the king cash cow as the subscription model continues its dominance.


6. Digital distribution will start being taken seriously by market analysts as Steam proves the platform's power on the PC market.

7. Digital distribution will quietly replace boxed sales completely for PC games.

BONUS REAL LIFE PREDICTION: A political uprising will shock the world and the mainstream media will only find out about it after checking their Twitter accounts.  Three days later, they will realize it was simply a mis-spelled #hashtag and re-purposed Youtube videos.