It’s New Year’s Eve 2016 and there’s nothing on TV, so it’s time for a look back at the year (that and I’m not going to remember any of this nonsense after a few weeks of 2017).
Note to future self: 2016 generally wasn’t a year worth remembering.
Surviving Extra Life 2015
I think I became aware of Extra Life two years ago. At the time, I was happy enough watching people play video games on the Internet, and watching people go from being overly enthusiastic to fighting off sleep was an entertaining bonus. The idea of running our own Extra Life stream wasn’t really floated around until after the 2014 Extra Life, and as is the case with most events that are a year away, a Trello board was made for planning.
There were more than a handful of ideas that never made it into our stream. For example, we were planning to play a bunch of board games on the stream, as it’s allowed by both Twitch and Extra Life. We played some Cards Against Humanity and a little Who Want’s to be a Millionaire? on our test stream back in April, but there was just too much downtime with people going for food and messing around with cameras for it to really be worth it.
The Grand Search for Wi-Fi
I decided the other day that I would go and see the new Avengers movie. The first film was great fun, and I’d thus far managed to avoid any trailers, character lists or spoilers. All the more reason to go and see it early, right? Nothing like being able to browse social media in complete confidence, but I suppose that’s going to remain a pipe dream until I’ve caught up with the current season of Game of Thrones.
My ticket was booked at home, but I needed to head to the cinema pretty sharpish if I was going to get there in time. I realised that I’d only be missing a few adverts if I was late, but I’d paid for those adverts and I’m damn well going to get my money’s worth.
American Chocolate and Blow a Kiss Katie
A few months ago, myself and a friend discovered a Tesco Extra a good 40-50 minutes away from my house. We’d been walking around aimlessly, as is tradition in Reading, when we stumbled upon it. We didn’t need to get anything at the time, so we carried on past it and wandered elsewhere.
On one of my first walks with Snorlax, I decided to find a distant place on a map and walk there. Walking around by yourself without a goal in mind is tougher than it seems, so I picked the Tesco. It was close to an hour from where I was at the time, so it seemed like a reasonable location to walk to.
Pokéwalker Challenge Update #1
It’s been nearly two weeks since I started carrying a pokéwalker around with me, and I think I’ve been doing a better job at forcing myself out of the house, taking longer routes and exploring this town I’ve lived in for 9 months. I’m now at the point where I need over 2000 steps per level, and while I’m averaging about 5000 steps a day, this is the part that I’m most worried about. If Snorlax isn’t levelling every time I connect to the DS, will that kill my interest? We’ll see. If you fancy seeing the stats so far, I’m keeping a Google Doc updated. It’s also pinned on my Twitter if you want to keep an eye on it and hurl abuse/encouragement my way.
Cool things I’ve found out because of Snorlax:
- Toys “R” Us continues to have a shit amiibo selection.
- Boonies Tesco has an amazing world foods aisle and I might just go there from now on.
- Finding a thing on a map and walking to it is kind of fun.
- Carrying my DS with me while Snorlax was low-levelled was sensible as it made the best use of my steps.
A Pokéwalker Challenge
I don’t really get that much exercise. I have a desk job, and when I’m not there I’m likely sat at my desk at home, moving occasionally when the kettle needs boiling. On top of not being active, I don’t really eat that well, either. I love my junk food, and honestly, I don’t really care that much about my body size and what other people think about it. If stuffing my face full of Doritos and Mountain Dew continued to feel like a good thing to do, then there’s not a lot out there that can stop me.
So when I look at cutting out all the terrible foods and actually doing some exercise, it’s pretty easy for me to just laugh to myself and carry on as I am. Don’t get me wrong, I’d certainly prefer to be fit and all, but I’m also pretty okay with how things are.
That said, there’s obviously a point to this blog post that isn’t just “I’m fat and that’s okay”. I’ve been thinking about ways to shake things up in a way that won’t put me off healthy eating and exercise after a few days trying to stick to it, so on Monday I made a few changes. I’m not going to go into most of those changes right now, but I will talk about a certain part of it. There are a few ways I’m trying to do exercise on the regular without burning myself out and never doing it again, and of course, video games are involved.
I’m going to raise a pokémon from level 1 to level 100 by walking.
2014: A Year In Review
2014 is over, and hey, it turned out to be pretty eventful. Here are some highlights of what I got up to, mainly for those curious friends of mine, and also (mainly) for the sake of my own awful memory!
Japan, annotated.
I’ve wanted to write something about the Japan trip for a little while now, but there’s not really much to say that the above video doesn’t. However, there’s a few things that happen in the video that aren’t explained or don’t appear too clearly, so I figured I’d usher away my Japan withdrawal symptoms by writing a little about what’s going on.
Yeah basically I’m giving myself an excuse to run through the video again send help.
The failed timing of the Game Boy Micro
The Game Boy Advance was the 32-bit leap for Nintendo’s flourishing handheld business, bringing the graphics of the Super Nintendo to gamers on the go. While the Game Boy Colour had a substantial library of games that weren’t painted in green and black tones, it was the Advance’s palette that truly brought vibrant worlds to a portable system. It was also a departure from the previous blocky handheld design, with a curvaceous and wide look that screamed “this is the future!”. Indeed it was, as the Advance made a memorable impact on the gaming world, shifting over 80 million consoles during its seven year lifetime. The handheld market proved that it could continue to thrive without a blockbuster game like Tetris helping to sell the units, and so long as they weren’t battling with sun glare, people were loving it.