Birthday Redux

A couple decades ago my birthday started to take on a sense of tradition. I'm not exactly how it started, but it usually involved two main activities:

1. Go to an IMAX film at the Planetarium
2. Go eat Mizithra Cheese pasta at the Spaghetti Factory

My kids were little and one of the short hour to 30-minute educational IMAX films was always something they enjoyed, and I liked it too, to be honest. Spaghetti Factory was all me though. I've loved that stupid Mizithra Cheese pasta with Browned Butter ever since I was a kid. 

Rewind to 12 years ago, and we moved to Texas. They still had the IMAX films, but the Old Spaghetti Factory chain was nowhere to be found. I wrote about it once before.  

Now fast forward to yesterday!  We're back in Utah and it was my birthday -- it was time once again to break out the old tradition! Do you know how cool it was to have all my kids with me and go eat at that stupid Old Spaghetti Factory? Super ultra cool. The best part was seeing my sons trust-fall onto the Mizithra Cheese pasta menu item with me and fall in love as I once did. I TOLD YOU IT WAS EPIC!

SPAGHETTI TIME!

The IMAX film we saw was the Secrets of the Sea 3D. I'm not going to lie--I dozed off a bit near the end. The music was so serene and the sea creatures were just floating by . . . and I was blissfully napping with my 3D glasses on. That said, what I did see in this documentary was fantastic. :)

An IMAX film at the Planetarium -- a classic birthday endeavor

The family supplied me with some very thoughtful gifts:

• A new camera stand for my 360 Camera
• A micro collectible wacky packages card set (I have a thing about wacky packages)
• A healing rock necklace
• A shower curtain (it's a long story)
• 50 bucks
• A bag of assorted nuts
• An Applebees gift card (my mom always gets me this)
• A zucchini noodles maker and a few zucchinis to go with it
• A commission-worthy piece of art of my choice
• A slew of birthday cards

It was all very nice, and I feel incredibly loved. For the commission-worthy piece of art of my choice, I asked my oldest to draw The Friendly Necromancer avatar wearing a VR headset . . . check out the cool result!

I love it.

I had a very cool birthday, and I'm happy I got to hang out with the ones I love. I couldn't have asked for anything better than to get to spend some time with my crew today.

Happy Dueling!
 

An Adventure at Meow Wolf in Grapevine Texas

All the Summer fun is quickly ending around our house. The kids are back to school next week. That means the Uber Wife goes back to school next week as well (she's an Educational Assistant for special needs kids). Because of this and since my birthday fell nicely near the weekend, we decided to take the 3 hour there and 3 hour back road trip over to a little suburb of Dallas, Texas, known as Grapevine. What's in Grapevine? Meow Wolf! What's Meow Wolf? Let me break it down.

Meow Wolf at a high level is an interactive art exhibit that's basically an expensive Fun House for adults. From the history that I've been told (my oldest is super into this), the first Meow Wolf was in Sante Fe New Mexico, and was really just an experiment to see if this idea could be profitable. The answer was yes, which led to probably the most famous of the Meow Wolf locations, Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The next Meow Wolf location to open up was Convergence Station in Denver, Colorado. This is one my wife and youngest had a chance to visit earlier in the summer when they took a trip to visit her side of the family. A little less than a month ago, the fourth Meow Wolf location opened up in Grapevine, Texas. The experience is titled "The Real Unreal."  

Welcome to the Real Unreal!

The Real Unreal exhibit begins in a house, which very much seems at first like any other house when you enter, but around the rooms you begin to find story clues as to where we find the family that lives there.  So here's the story as much as I could figure out:

Figuring out clues to Jared's disappearance

The boy of the family, Jared, had been missing for three days and the family went in a panic to find him. Jared, as it turns out, had a little not-so-imaginary friend named Happy Gary, a very colorful and crazy axolotl-type-of-whimsical-creature. Jared followed Happy Gary into the Real Unreal for only a short time, but time in the Real Unreal works differently. Upon Jared's return, the whole family got sucked into the Real Unreal because Happy Gary broke something, and now the entire house was serving as a portal into the Real Unreal realm. (um, something like that)

I may be totally wrong on a few things and there seems to be lots of mysterious questions. We ran into a really nice 17-year-old there who took a liking to our nerdy family and kept running into us and talking with us about all the clues and things he had found. He was REALLY into the story. 

I took my 360 camera with me, and unfortunately they didn't allow selfie sticks, so most of my 360 shots also feature my stretched arm and hand holding up the camera, which to be honest, kind of helps sell the vibe of Meow Wolf anyway.

So depending on which portal you take out of the house, you'll end up in different areas of the maze-like exhibit. Eventually the paths kind of converge into a crazy City Street full of neon and wild art. There's a phone booth there with numbers you can call and get random messages about what's happening in the city, like the number we called to find out that every second Tuesday of the month there may or may not be some kind of worm club gathering?

360 photo of a crowded city street ally -- open it up and look around!

Inside the City there's a very chill dance club that plays some really mellow electronic music as the whole black lit and neon filled room undulates to the beat. It was pretty great. We spent a lot of time in this spot, just hanging out and enjoying our time people watching. For an extra 5 bucks a person they'll give you some 3D glasses you can wear, and really the best time to wear these was in this dance club. The colors just gave the walls a new "Real unreal" depth to it.

The undulating dance club of the Real Unreal

There was also a really scuffed up looking arcade here with actual, playable homegrown video games for the exhibit. It was really hard to get some screen time in front of one of the games since there were so many people there, so I let my kids do all the playing while the wife and I sat down on a sofa made from a stitched together pile of clothes.

360 photo of the arcade

Of course, this place also lends itself to Instagram photo opportunities throughout. It definitely has a different vibe than a dedicated photo op installation, but with great spots like the black and white illusion tunnel, it just makes sense: this is a great spot for getting unusual photos and videos.

360 photo of the illusion hallway

It was a long and fun day, and the family had a good time exploring. It might be fun to actually try to come back at a less crowded time than the end of summer on a weekend of the opening month. In fact, a second tuesday of the month, a few months down the road, during the middle of the school year sounds perfect! I'd love to see if there actually was some kind of special worm thing happening at that time. I'm sure Happy Gary would be excited to see us again.

Happy Dueling!

Chilling, Eating, and Dungeon Delving -- It's a good day

I decided to take the day off of work for my birthday yesterday because it was so close to the weekend. I had a nice day, and I have nothing really to write about today, so I'm just going to journal a bit about the day for my Blaugust post today.

The Uber Wife and I started out the day with a really nice walk after dropping our son off to his Band Cult. Yup, the youngest is a new freshman in the high school band, and things have really upped a notch for the band kids since I was one. The tail end of the summer here has been all about Band Camp, and it has become everything in the world. Thus, I've been calling it a cult that we've lost our son to as a joke. Whenever there's fees to pay, I call them cult dues. Whenever there's special clothes he needs to buy, it's his occult robes. Whenever there's a special practice that lasts several hours, it's cult training. You get the idea. In all seriousness, he loves playing the mellophone/french horn, and the high school runs an excellent program here.

It was a sunny Texas morning

Anyway, the walk was wonderful. My wife took me to her new walking spot and it was great. I had given up on Pikmin Bloom a while ago, but wife never did. Because of her persistence, I'm back at it and we were planting flowers, using detectors, and going on expeditions during our walk. I'm also playing Peridot, so I kept toggling between the two apps. 

A magic hatching moment in Peridot

She would point out things that happen on her walk like, "Here comes the guy with the dog that always passes me!" "There's a downed tree up ahead!" "Watch out here the sidewalk is uneven and you can trip!" It was a good time and she got to play tour guide.

After that I grabbed my oldest and we headed over to Leala and Beau's house. They are giving us their old mini fish tank, so we picked it up. It gave me a nice opportunity to show off Leala's collection of Monster High dolls to my oldest, who was absolutely amazed. You too can check out her channel on YouTube at Leala Collects. 

Mac with Leala's amazing collection

For lunch the family wanted to join me in the communal eating of food, so we picked up our little cultist from his band practice and headed to one of my favorite spots here in Austin: Chi'lantro. They've gone a little more streamlined from how they were in the past and their prices have definitely sky rocketed, but it was still delicious as ever. I love to order Umma's Salad with K-pop chicken and a spritz of that magic sauce. SO GOOD. It's expensive but worth it. Even better, they screwed up one of our orders and basically gave us a free Umma's Salad to go, so I ended up having Chi'lantro TWICE yesterday!

Chillin with the children at Chi'lantro 

Later we dropped my son off at a side-cult activity where he and the other mellophone alter boys would practice a lip-sync and put on funny outfits as a part of an evening just-for-fun cult service. Basically every section in the band had a bonding activity night where they independently of each other practiced a lip-sync routine and then competed in the evening as their band teachers scored them. It was actually really hilarious. The flute section got robbed, and the drum majors were fantastically synced. The mellophone group lip sync'd to The Greatest Show from the movie The Greatest Showman. It was pretty great, and our son dressed up as one of the Albino Dancers -- thus lending itself to more cult jokes for me. They did great. It was funny.

My cultist in some cult garb

Finally, at the end of the day. FINALLY, I got a chance to play some Diablo IV. I finished up all my Lililth Statues and I did several Fractured Peaks dungeons. I was going to break down each of them here as a part of the post, but why would I do that when the Wowhead wiki has already done such a nice job of it?

Going full firestarter in Kor Dragan Barracks

I went to Nostrava Deepwood, Derelict Lodge, Caldera Gate, and the Kor Dragan Barracks. All in all, I made some good progress on my Fractured Peaks Renown and will probably shift to quests for a bit here so I don't get burnt out on just dungeon delving for renown.

Man I love Artillery Shrines!

It was a great day and really fun to spend it with my family.

Happy Dueling!

A Birthday Review for Me -- 2022 to Twenty-Twenty-Three

Oh no! It's my birthday and all the social media sites are alarming my friends, family, and past acquaintances that they should say Happy Birthday to me! What should I do?! I know! Make a post on my blog to make sure everyone WHO ACTUALLY MATTERS knows it's my birthday! I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding! . . . but you know I love my readers!

I did a year in review post last year, and so I thought I'd do that again for the span of 2022 to 2023. 2021 saw a kind of rebirth of my personal music journey when I released Red Pinto Hatchback, and I kept that journey going with a beat tape this year titled Rotted Leisure Rooms, which was a pretty big project for me personally. (Hard to explain how much time went into making that collection of songs.) 

It's certainly not surprising to anyone that I spent a lot of time playing games and writing about them this last year, but what you don't know is that it was also a year where I swallowed my man pride and took on some unresolved issues from 52 years of living. Whew. Let's review!

~~

1- Guild Wars 2 -- Team Spode once again focused its Sunday Night adventures on Guild Wars 2, and I rejoined the gang for that journey. Of course, it wasn't just Sunday Nights when I'd play. I dove into the game HARD the last half of 2022. It had always been a thorn in my side that I hadn't completed a legendary weapon, and so finally wielding Sunrise was a big deal.

After that came a pretty incredible journey of just catching up on all the mounts in Guild Wars 2: from the basics to the big boy. I still need to get my two-seater turtle mount, but after conquering the skyscale quest, I took a bit of a break with spending so much time in Guild Wars 2. I still log on for Sunday nights though . . 

My Best Guild Wars 2 Screenshot of 2023

2- VR -- Karnage Chronicles was a game changer for me in VR. After playing that game seriously to completion, I had finally started to earn my VR sea legs. I actually miss it. I should go back and play some more! What a fun game! Of course, that wasn't the only VR game I was playing. 

This blog's big VR push this year was tackling a nine-in-a-row review of the weirdest genre mashup out there, VR Match-3 games. The big winner there was Rainbow Reactor. That's another game I should go back and play again. 

I was equally blown away by the details found in Township Tale. I played so many solid VR games last year, it's hard to mention them all. BUT ALL THAT COMBINED was nothing compared to the real big, recent VR news for me . . .

The embodied crafting in Township Tale is next level

3- Launch of Battle Bows -- Every developer knows that moment when everything you've been keeping secret for the past year or two comes out into the open and people start downloading and reviewing your game. It's pretty magical. I can't say enough good things about the team behind our game and how hard they worked to transition our mobile game company into a VR game company. Thank you so much to my friends and readers who picked up Battle Bows and gave it a playthrough. Your support is appreciated.

Love the Speedy Balloony plushy they gave all the employees for the launch of the game

4- Diablo IV -- I didn't realize how much this game consumed me, but looking back at the past few months, yeah, it really did. I've been fascinated by it and the reaction so many people had to it: good and bad. None of it really matters to me though, I've played the Diablo series since the very beginning, including my fair share of the original old school diablo clones (I'm looking at you Darkstone, Dungeon Seige and Nox). Anyway, it's kind of my thing. Not surprising I got sucked into it.

Lilith bringing me my birthday cake

5- Going to Therapy -- You know, as it turns out, 52 years of living exposes you to a lot of mental knots. This is my first time publicly admitting that I'm in therapy. In 2023 I think it's no surprise to anyone, but it was a big surprise for me. Finally getting to talk through a bunch of life with someone is a huge help. It's also been pretty devastating at times. I've spent a good part of the last few months just cataloging and understanding the grief that's happened in my life, and there's still more work to be done. On the upside, it's also caused me to do a lot of weird digital art.

As it turns out, sometimes you just need to scribble on paper 

6- ACL Festival -- We've lived in Austin 10 years now and last year was the first year we ever braved the mass of people and went to ACL. It's a 3-day outdoor, live music festival. It also coincided with my wife's 50th birthday, so it was the perfect excuse. 

The whole family went and we listened to a TON of great bands; ate a TON of expensive vendor food; saw great headliner acts like Lil Nas X, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Paramore; and danced to a TON of other great bands like L'imperatrice, Goth Babe, and Oliver Tree. 

I think I might need a few years to recover before heading back. It's pretty daunting to do a full 3-day fest like that anymore. 

The whole Friendly Necromancer crew at ACL fest -- my youngest was so tired lol

7- D&D and Pathfinder -- The term "Open Gaming License" or OGL reached far and wide last year as Wizards of the Coast got absolutely raked over the coals from their controversial licensing changes for modifying and publishing Dungeons and Dragons content. It was a strange cultural shift that reached as far as my little Thursday night Dungeons and Dragons group. 

Content creators really had the ear of a couple members of our D&D group and the end result is that we ended up shifting from playing D&D to Pathfinder. Meh. As long as I don't have to DM the game and can still do some goofy roleplay, I'll keep bringing the Rap Snacks for the group. Pathfinder or D&D, it doesn't really matter to me. 

I have a secret gas station I buy my Rap Snacks at . . . it's the only place I've found them for sale

8- Great friends, like you! -- You never know if there's anyone out there that you've touched, and so that's why it's so cool when an old reader reaches back out to you. I had a few really cool moments this year when it happened, and it really does make it all worth it. 

Thanks, Team!

Happy Dueling!

It's my Birthday! Time for a review of '21 to '22

The well wishes started to come in last night from my online Australian friends (I mean, it was the 4th for them after all and social media sites started tattling on me early), and a few more are trickling in this morning. That said, we're not really celebrating much on the actual day this year. I'm still working today, but I am going to play some D&D tonight, so there's that! Our family will be waiting until the weekend to really have fun together.

Overall, the span of 2021 to 2022 was much better for me than the span of 2020 to 2021. Last year I wrote about all the stress and recovery I went through, but this year, it's been more of an amazing ride. I'm still getting over the fact that I actually released a new album of music, but I thought I'd take a moment and just write down a few thoughts and highlights from the past year.

~~

1- Runes of Magic -- RoM solidly had my ear for the first half of the year last year. I saw mention of it on Massively OP as a forgotten MMO and that was my cue to go check it out. (You know I love a good off beat MMO.) I was pleasantly surprised to find an actually pretty vibrant community keeping that game going. The best thing to come out of my time in that game was all the friends I made in an old folks guild there. The second best thing to come out of Runes of Magic was a massive amount of game writing for me on the way up to end game as I took a good look at what makes the game tick. 

A small gathering of guildies in Runes of Magic

It's fun . . . but the Guild vs. Guild PvP in that game is a pay to win mess, and I think it was actually the end game gear grind that caused me to check out. I found my breaking point about six months in when I was approaching end game and saw it for what it was in the bottom half of this post: "I don't know . . . maybe I don't have the full picture on gear costs and I've never seen anybody with a tier 20 piece of gear because if you do the math, isn't that like 4.5 million dollars for one piece of gear?  That can't be right, can it? No . . . I gotta be looking at this wrong . . . THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT?! Please someone educate me in the comments if I'm not looking at this right." No one came to educate me on my post, but as it turns out, there is another way . . . it just takes a lot of time. More time than I'm willing to give to the game.

2- VR -- I fell in love with VR this past year. I mean, I had already started down that path a couple years ago thanks to PSVR games like Astrobot, Beatsaber, and Dreams, but my son introduced me to the Oculus 2, and that's all it took this year for me. As it turns out, it was good timing since my company had also decided to take a look into VR development. The big announcement for me there is that I'm now part of our first VR Skunk Works team, making a new game and learning the ropes as we go.  That also means I'm also really trying to immerse myself in VR news, games, and thoughts. I'm making daily trips to the Road to VR and Upload websites (a couple good bookmarks for you) and playing VR daily.

If you stick around and continue reading here at the Friendly Necromancer, you'll probably see more VR game reviews and thoughts as I continue to be fascinated with it.

3- Launch of RPG Dice, Heroes of Whitestone. There were two things that actually tore me away from Runes of Magic last year, and that's the launch of WIMO's RPG Dice and playing a little New World with my friends Stephen and Christina.  It was a one-two-punch for Runes of Magic, and I bounced. My wife and I run a guild in RPG Dice called Wyrd Beards, and it's been our mobile game of choice to play together the past half of the year.  

I find it hard to be subjective about reviewing a game I also worked on, so I haven't talked much about it here on my blog. I will say that I'm having a great time playing our game. Perhaps when I'm going through my Game Portfolio this month, I'll say a few more thoughts.

As for New World, I really only penned two posts about it here on my blog, but it really was a very enjoyable game.  I'd love to head back in and hit more of the dungeons with Stephen and Christina. We'd just need to get our schedules to sync up again and find some time. It was nice having some time to talk with Christina about the recent death of our beloved Chrissy the Blesser . . . long time supporter of Pirate101 and The Friendly Necromancer.

4- My amazing son. It wasn't just all about games of course, I had a lot of great things happening in my real life. The big event was when my son, "Kyle Skystaff" as he was known on this blog, graduated from High School. He's such a great person, and I'm so proud of all he's done in his life. There was a time in my life when I wasn't sure if he'd ever be communicative because of his autism, but he's in such a good spot now. It's pretty amazing.

For his senior trip we took him and the whole family over to Pensacola Florida so he could hang out with his friend.  He's still learning to drive, so we drove him and made a little family vacation out of it. Pensacola has the most amazing white and soft sand. That was a great trip for all of us!

*waves*

5- My trip back home to Utah this year was also a real-life treat. I loved that I was able to just spend a week there, and while it was a busy trip full of things to do, the real highlight was spending my mornings simply sitting with my mother in her retirement home, watching Star Trek Next Generation with her. I wish time and proximity allowed me to do that more often. Also getting to meet Adam Terry of FountainAVM and actually play in a club in SLC after 30 years of not doing so . . . wow. I'm stunned that I actually spent some time on stage performing this past year.

Yup, that's me on that stage *pinch*

6- Gaming with the legendary Lessah Ismorah has been another great highlight this year. We played a ton of Far Cry 6 together, as well as 7 days to die, and now we've started dipping our toes into Icarus. I honestly don't know why more people don't follow Lessah. As I tell her all the time, "WHY ARE YOU NOT FAMOUS YET?!" She's a hidden gem of a person, and I'm glad I discovered her funny sense of humor through listening to Dungeons and Dragons Online podcasts. 

7- I loved reconnecting with Team Spode and playing through V Rising. Even if the game puttered out on us, it was a lot of fun when we were all vamping it up and having fun in a game together again. Team Spode is looking to head back into Guild Wars 2 for a while, and that'll consume many many late Sunday nights to come. Calrain, Tipa, and Spode are the best static group friends you could ever ask for, and as for Tipa . . . what an amazing writer she is! 

Team Spode swinging around on a vine in Guild Wars 2

8- Fun at Mutant Reviewers. This year also saw me starting to write a few movie reviews at the Mutant Reviewers website. If you guys don't know Syp, you should get to know him. The guy puts out an amazing amount of content that is truly to be respected.  Between movie reviews, podcasts, game writing, being a pastor, and more . . . I just don't know how he does it all.  He, of course, attributes it to organization and a few good tools, but I think it's magic. Yup, it's magic.

9- Great friends, like you! I just want to say how happy I am to have friends that check in on me and are making their way in the world, being successful humans. Too many great people to mention, but you all are fantastic people. Have to call out by name my friends Mercedes and Kayly. To see the great things they're doing at KingsIsle, and to know that their paths to becoming game devs was so similar to mine just makes me happy. I'm so sorry I keep myself so busy and don't have as much time to chat as we used to.

Thanks for reading, and here's to making the upcoming year just as amazing! (Why as I type that do I fear the worst? The pandemic has had a really long shadow.)

Happy Dueling!

It was a good day -- #Blaugust2021 Day 5

Thank you everyone for your kind birthday wishes that you left me on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and here on the good ol' blog. You're all wonderful friends, blog mates, followers, and family. 

So, since it's Blaugust and I've committed to writing everyday, I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about my family's fun day we had and share a few pictures.

We started the day off by catching a matinee of Snake Eyes at the Flix Brewhouse. My kids have absolutely no idea about GI Joe and how it was kind of a toy/cartoon sensation from my childhood. I wasn't a huge fan, but even I owned the Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow Ninja Action Figures. They were the coolest figures of the bunch anyway.

We were pretty nervous going into the movie that had some pretty mixed reviews, but you just need to go into it knowing it's an action movie that moves very quickly at the beginning, which means you really need to pay attention there at the first to keep up . . . after that, just enjoy the ride, which includes some epic motorcycle ninja chase scenes and giant anaconda goodness.

The theater was pretty void of people since it was a Wednesday Matinee showing, and my kids all liked the movie. My middle child was really inspired by the Tokyo Neon Battle Scene aesthetic in the movie. Right after the movie he started brainstorming how he could somehow take inspiration from Snake eyes and work it into one of his OC's for roleplaying. LOL. My kids are great.

Family in the photo spot at Flix

Flix is one of those eat food while you watch a movie establishments where they bring out your food during the movie. I had a salad. Pretty good actually. Unfortunately, the waiter accidentally dumped my kid's rootbeer and didn't realize some of the drink ended up on his chicken tenders and fries, so his food ended up a little soggy. It was a little distracting, but he was happy enough eating chips and popcorn after consuming the non-soggy bits of food.

Next up was an escape room visit to Escape Hour Austin for a family puzzle solving adventure through the Dead Man's Cove . . . a pirate-themed escape room that was pretty interesting. There were a few of the puzzles where we were way too clever for our own good and overthought them, but we ended up beating the escape room with 5 minutes left out of the allotted 70 minutes.

Arrr, the Pirate's Cove be walking OUR plank, mateys!

It was pretty cool actually, it featured shooting a ghost pirate and sinking a ghost ship. Our guide was a parrot animatronic controlled by the game master, so we could do the whole thing mask-free with just our family in the room. I really feel like conquering an escape room is a perfect birthday adventure for our family. Will do again 10/10.

We then ended up at an interactive art museum in Austin called Wonderspaces. This is a great Instagram photo shoot spot. There were about 14 installations there for you to explore and take selfies inside. The kids loved wandering through the large strands of lights, the VR experience, the plastic bag meditative space, the mirror hallway, and the wall of last words. It was all pretty interesting to be honest. We spent a little over an hour there exploring and having fun with the interactive exhibits. That's the perfect kind of art museum for my kids to be honest.

Movement made colors wash over the screen as my kids swirled around it

A stoic selfie moment inside the hallway of lights and mirrors 

Tickled pink at Wonderspaces.

The day finally wound down with a diabetic birthday cake and meal. My wife managed to put together a meal that simulated my old traditional love of Mizithra Cheese brown butter pasta by using spaghetti made out of chickpeas and a special cake, which I don't know what ingredients were in that, but besides being a little dense, it was actually pretty great! She went over all the nutritional values with me and to be honest, it was probably all way too salty and the carbs were pushing it, but it was my birthday after all.

I couldn't have asked for a better day. 

Happy Dueling!

Birthday Year in Review -- #Blaugust2021 Day 4

 It's my birthday! We've got a fun day planned and I even slept in a bit. So, it's time for a bit of a review. What a strange year it has been . . . and the theme of this year has been . . . 

STRESS 

. . . and dealing with the results of stress.

1- The Pandemic -- Just in general, being cooped up and working remotely has been pretty stressful for me. Trying to keep track of kids going to school remotely while working my job is not ideal. My wife is an educational assistant, so she worked at the school most of the year. I, on the other hand, pretty much was the only responsible parent around, and keeping the kids in check fell upon my shoulders. Add to this that I'm a people person, and being isolated wasn't great.

2- Hellish Power Outage -- I can't tell you how stressful that week was without power. The worry and helplessness that came from that was pretty real.  We worked it out, but that week had a long shadow.

3- Sell of KingsIsle -- The announcement that KingsIsle was being sold to Gamigo was a huge out of left field thing that kinda hit me with a right hook. I really had some heartbreak going on here because I love KingsIsle and for a while I felt like I was one of the faces of KingsIsle for so many players because of our KI Live Livestreams. It took a lot to say goodbye and realize that I wasn't going to be a part of that company anymore. I was also saying goodbye to so many friends and coworkers all at once.

4- Job Change -- I was safely picked up by the new company born out of the sale of KingsIsle, so I didn't miss any paychecks. In fact, I got a promotion out of it. But, there were a lot of unknowns that we all had to be patient about. What insurance do we have? What about my oodles of PTO? etc. etc.  It all got answered of course and everything worked out, but it just added to the stress.

5- Caffeine addiction -- I've often heard that video games are built on caffeine, but my caffeine and sugar addiction was real. I was doing stupid stuff too like drinking Coke back to back with eating jellybeans, so you know . . . it was a sugar addiction as well. Stress is bad enough, but there's nothing like a can of Coke to make you really feel that stress in your fingers and toes. It was leading to some pretty bad leg cramps in the middle of the night too, so you can add "interrupted sleep" to that list of stressors as well.

All of that was a disastrous cocktail leading up to the big crash in my life that I haven't really talked about on my blog yet.

6- Type 2 Diabetes -- A couple weeks after the hellish power outage, my body went into full rebellion and all of a sudden I just couldn't catch up to my thirst. I literally had 20 glasses of water that first day and I was still thirsty. I knew something was wrong, so I searched it online and that's when I knew . . . my stupid self had developed diabetes.  All the stress and sugar finally flipped the switch in my body and that was that. My father, mother, and one of my sisters all developed diabetes, and I should have been more careful because of this, but I didn't think about it.

I went to the doctor and he confirmed it . . . my blood was basically syrup in my veins at that point and it was so bad that I qualified for insulin. I didn't want insulin though, I wanted to go the diet route.

...and so I did.

The past 5 months has been a complete change for me as far as my diet goes. I've cut out sugar and carbs as much as I possibly can and created a diet that seems to work for me. My follow up visit with the doctor was a complete success. I dropped 40 pounds and got my blood sugar back to acceptable levels. I'm on Metphormin, which is actually a pretty common and cheap medicine to control diabetes, but I've had to make a complete life style change. So this year there won't be any traditional cake at my birthday. This year, the wife has a special "diabetic" cake for me as I head into my 50th birthday.

So I don't feel guilty when I say . . . this new birthday computer I'm typing on, with its $1000 video card inside and screaming speed, is so nice! 

It's a souped-up HP Omen . . . oh man, it's awesome!

I'm happy as can be. I'm in a better place now as I head into the back end of my life. Bring on the black balloons! Let's do this!

Happy Dueling!

Promptapalooza: Out with the Mizithra

Today's Promptapalooza was sponsored by the letter E, also Everwake from Everwake's Internet Adventures. Today's specific prompt is "Everyone has specific rituals that they follow, tell us about one of yours"

I'm really loving reading Everwake's posts that have been happening for Promptapalooza. They've all been high quality, honest, and hilarious. Case in point:

My favorite ritual is staying up late on an autumnal night, collecting bits of salt, spice, and incense in a purpose-made basket, and walking a lush, green, forested path to an ancient monument that overlooks the neighboring valley. From there, I sacrifice a virgin and say a few words to satiate the RNG Gods so that we might have yet another bountiful raid for our tanks, who are squishier than a bag of bread.

Everwake goes on to make comparisons between Rituals and Routines and their influence on not only gaming, but life in general.  It's a great read, you best go check it out for yourself.

As for me, it's actually my birthday today, which kind of plays into this topic quite well.

For the past 20 years or so, every birthday we all go see an IMAX film and then go out to eat Italian.  It used to be that it wasn't just any Italian . . . it was always The Old Spaghetti Factory.

Unfortunately, ever since moving to Texas we've discovered that the closest Old Spaghetti Factory is in Kansas, so we had to make the ritual a bit more generic, and that sucks to be honest because that Mizithra cheese pasta at the Old Spaghetti Factory is the best ever comfort food for me.

That is a beautiful bowl of heaven right there...

We've tried other Italian restaurants here . . . everything from Bucci de Beppos to Macaroni Grill and back again. It's like I've been on a gondola ride of failure and nothing quite captures the ritual as well as ye' ol' Spaghetti Factory.

This year was even more generic thanks to the pandemic going on.  We watched a National Geographic Documentary on King Cobras in place of seeing an IMAX film and had Olive Garden to go.  It's fine though . . . better safe than sorry.

HA! I really hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining. It was a perfectly fine birthday, and I even got Dreams for the PS4 from the family as a gift.  Oh man . . . it looks SO COOL! I can't wait to explore it's creativity.

I guess what I'm getting at more is "the ritual" since that's the topic at hand. Ever since moving here that essential piece of the ritual has been missing and every year that Italian dinner feels a bit disappointing in retrospect. I don't even know why this became such a "thing" for me to do on my birthday, but it is. It's not like I believe that I will have a magically perfect year once the ritual is complete or anything. It's just become my thing, which is weird.

Next year will be my 50th birthday.  Yes, I'm that old. Perhaps that year is the perfect year to start a new ritual, something entirely Austin, Texas and Gamer dad at the same time.  BBQ and Dungeons and Dragons?  Chi'lantro and Gloomhaven?

Those Kimchi Fries are pretty much the most amazing thing ever to be honest . . .

I've got a year to figure it out and really should have changed the ritual a long time ago.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 5 -- Birthday Recap . . . so much Diablo 3

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was pretty great. I got spammed with the usual happy birthday messages on Facebook and Twitter, received cards from family, ate cake, and got a few presents.  Couldn't be happier.

Check out the super cool Lucio figure I got!

He's chillin' out on some comics and by a homemade card from my kids.  They know me so well. I AM Magical!

There was a mini-gencon going on at a local comic book store on Saturday called Dragon's Lair and we went there for my birthday and hung out for a bit and bought some stuff for my birthday. Also hit an Italian place (it's tradition to go eat Italian on my birthday) and got the worlds largest bowl of spaghetti for the family. I wish I had a picture of that, but instead all I have is this picture of me giving the side-eye to the side-eye picture of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield. Thank you Twitter for helping us solve that mystery.

I also played A LOT of Diablo 3 over the weekend . . . as evidenced by my post from yesterday, but I have new NEWS on my progress.  Come to find out after burning though Chapter 2, I already had most of Chapter 3's achievements done!  So now Dalia Falmea is a freaking max level TERROR OF FIRE! And pretty awesome looking too.

Funny enough, there's no photoshopping going on in this picture, her hat actually does a mini-Falmea hair all on its own. I mean . . . it could be bigger, but I'll take it.

GUYS, lemme tell you what it's like to drive this character now.  It's amazing.  It feels so good to just chuck fireballs out and completely destroy everything in my path . . . and walking behind me as well. Anyone who played Diablo I will fondly recount the pleasures of kiting enemies through firewall. It feels a bit like that, but way better.

I captured a bit of game play footage of me wrecking the place on Torment II setting:

(Sorry about going the wrong direction there at first . . . I can't tell you how many times I've gone the wrong way to Mahgda from that waypoint.) I even got to "show off" the main cool feature of that set at around the 3 minute 25 second point of the video: every 60 seconds, when you die, you are reborn like a phoenix and do damage to those around you. It makes me feel super brave in the face of danger. LOL! And of course, the constant barrage of meteors is super apropos for Falmea.

So now it's just a question of if I can put in the time to get Chapter 4 done in time. I've got a lot of other video games to play this Blaugust, so . . . we'll see? I am having fun with Diablo 3 for sure though!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!

Happy Dueling!

2013 Birthday Fun Stuff!

Heya everyone, besides the really fun Twitter and Facebook messages that have been exploding my Timeline (and really nice emails as well), you gotta check out these extra special pictures and posts.

First up, one of Johnny's awesome trademark collages that everyone loves!

I'm a bird! Awesome! That's so me . . . hehe.

Next, FrostCaller broke out a really cool One-Eyed Jack Sig for me:

Dang! I just love his bold use of color--great talent there!

And Finally Paige Moonshade and a ton of other fansites gathered round good ol' One-Eyed Jack and gave me a birthday wish!

HAHA! Thank you thank you!

**EDIT** . . . and as I was posting this I got ANOTHER shoutout from Edward Lifegem. LOL! THANKS EDWARD! **EDIT**

Birthdays are great, but even better when a friendly community like ours gathers around you and makes you feel extra special.

Thanks everyone!

Happy Dueling!

Wysteria up on the Test Realm! (Birthday Present!)

Twitter was fun to watch yesterday. :)

The news came down over Twitter yesterday that the door to Wysteria was open on the Test Realm.


There was also a scoop from IGN on the patcher. Ahh, KingsIsle, that's some good media coverage. The IGN crowd was like "people play this game?"


laugh. Keep it up, KingsIsle! IGN is right there with Kotaku, 1Up, Gamespot, and all the other premium game reporting sites. That's some awesome candy for the marketing team.

On a few mini-breaks at work, I'd tune in to my own Twitter stream and watched as Uber Wife and Amber took over and started posting a ton of pictures from the test realm. Quite awesome to actually see Wysteria since all I had seen before this were words.

Yeah, I've been under embargo about Wysteria since the next Beckett's article talks about it. :) That's also why the day before yesterday I couldn't participate in any theorycrafting about what the new content might be . . . since, well, I already knew what it was. BUT had I not known, I wouldn't have been able to guess what it was. A new door on the spiral like this is a complete surprise, right? I would have guessed they would be doing something with that fifth floating island in Krokotopia.

Yup! I had a great time playing through the first area or so with Myrna last night.


This whole world just feels like Easter to me for some strange reason . . . perhaps the bunnies and pastels? Nah! Must be some other reason. I wonder if there could be an Easter event in Wysteria next year? could be fun!

Amber went on yesterday to complete the main storyline in Wysteria and earned her spiral cup!


Nicely done, daughter. You rock! Didn't seem to take her too long with all the power of level 60 behind her, but Uber Wife made the comment that perhaps it would be a difficult challenge for someone in their 20's (especially the fight against Kisai Shugenja where he keeps putting up a 90% tower shield)? I'm not sure. I don't know if I have a character currently in that level range. hmm!

So is it just me or do the new areas that KingsIsle is releasing seem to be getting smaller and smaller? I wonder if that means that eventually they'll unleash a huge monster of a world so we can finally fight Morganthe?

My main question when I saw the name Wysteria was, "Why does KingsIsle keep naming worlds after My little pony characters?"


. . . word to the bronies. :p I'm just kidding by the way . . . I think they are a completely separate phenomenon, kind of like crop circles and aliens. O.o

Anyway, as it so happens, today is my birthday! Thanks for the gift of Wysteria KingsIsle. ;) And thanks to my old pal Cassandra over at Witchwarrior for this cool birthday gift portrait.



WINKS AND PEACE!

We're totally winks and peace on my birthday!

Happy Dueling!

Me and Barack Giving You All Some B-day Cake!

It's my birthday today! Er wait, it's Obama's and my birthday today!


I've taken the day off to chill with the family. For my birthday we usually go hit an IMAX film and eat out somewhere awesome like the Spaghetti Factory. They have this mizithra cheese pasta that's really freaking good. My daughter wants to play "three hours of Wizard101" with me as a present. lol. That actually sounds a little exhausting when she puts it that way. :-)

On the other hand, Obama isn't taking his day off. Go figure.

Last year we didn't do much for my birthday because, well, we had a new baby on our hands, and that makes life a little more interesting when trying to go out on the town. It'll probably provide some challenges this year too, but it's not going to stop me from trying! RAWR!

Last year Obama was giving out birthday cake to other people who have August 4th as a birthday, like Helen Thomas (white house reporter).

I kind of want to do the same thing. From visiting Diary of a Wizard ConnectX site, I see that there are a number of Wizard101 players also having a birthday today:

Brandon Bux
Dakota Trollbane
Eric Stormcaster
Jeffery Flores
Joshua

It's not quite a cake from the White House, but hey! Happy Birthday awesome people!

Hope you all have a great day!

Happy Dueling!

Birthday wrap up!

Hey! I just wanted to say thanks to everyone at Central for wishing me a happy birthday! That was a fun surprise for me when I logged in this morning. KahlanAmnell (aka Fallon Shadowblade) over at central also got me a birthday cake, grizzleheim, and sorting hat icons for my central profile. hehe. YAY!

Also, WOW it was cool to see the comments roll in during the day on my birthday post yesterday here on my blog. I really appreciate the support you guys give me here at The Friendly Necromancer. Blogging for Wizard101 has been an amazing ride so far; you all are a big reason why a couple of my gifts that I got yesterday are so awesome.

Let me explain by showing a few pictures:



My eyes are gripping for the bump as I receive the traditional "bump on the head" from the birthday present by Kyle. Please tell me I'm not alone with the traditional "bump on the head" birthday song. I really hope generations of lionbloods haven't been the only ones bumping people on the head with their birthday presents. (Man, I really should shave . . . it's been a couple weeks now . . . *scratches chin*) Anyway, you can see this is a framed Malistaire poster. I got that from Professor Greyrose many months ago after I did an interview with her. She has a heart of gold. That was around the same time they gave away signed posters to the first 101 people who made grandmaster after Dragonspyre was released I believe. I think I got a left over from that batch. :-)



And this is a framed article from the Beckett Magazine where I was quoted. LOL! I'm officially an uber sentimental geek now. My wife is awesome for framing these for me for my birthday.



This card was hilarious to me. I'm such a big kid that they have to buy me kid cards and scratch out "kid" and replace it with "dad." Amber explained to me that all the dad cards were really dumb. Thanks, Amber!

Besides that I got some shoes and a couple shirts. We had birthday cake. OH! Which reminds me, I need to go have some birthday cake for breakfast!!!

BYE!

HAPPY DUELING!

Happy Birthday to . . . um . . . me!

It's my birthday today!



(I wonder if Duke Brandy likes raspberry filling?)

I'm starting to get to that age where putting that many candles on a cake could be hazardous. Gifts so far include: new shoes, new shirt, a new replacement iPhone, and um I think there's a surprise for me tonight from the family (shhhh, I think I know what it is).

Happy Dueling!