Some Thoughts...

It has been a while since I've done any sort of ranting post on here.  While I won't completely rage like I did in some posts I made on here in the beginning; I needed a place where I can speak my mind in more than 140 characters.  This post won't be completely rage induced either, I'll talk about some stuff I have in mind to do in the future.

A couple weeks ago I went down to Peoria, IL to see The Pretty Reckless, Adelita's Way, Alter Bridge and Five Finger Death Punch in concert.  It was a really sick show to see, all of the groups that performed were amazing.  During the 5FDP set they introduced the next song they were going to play as "Burn MF" off of one of their newer albums.  When doing so Ivan Moody (the lead vocalist for 5FDP) mentioned that some of us may be familiar with the news going around about the band performing this song live.  At that time I didn't know what he was talking about, so I paid no attention to it; it wasn't until a few days later when I was listening to the radio and a radio DJ said what the whole deal was about.  When they perform the song, they bring several kids on stage to sing the chorus.  Apparently at one of the earlier tour dates some parent got all bent out of shape that they do that and started complaining.

I have this to say about it.  You knew exactly who you were going to see when you bought the tickets.  If you know anything about Death Punch you know they don't sing happy go lucky lyrics, so you cannot complain about your children being exposed to that.  You most likely bought the album for them when they asked for it and if you didn't stop and think "Hey, should I maybe be a parent and find out if my child should really be listening to this?" after seeing the albums title (Wrong Side of Heaven, Righteous Side of Hell) you should probably rethink of your definition of parenting.  I understand a parent not wanting their kids to swear up a storm every time they speak as my parents raised me to not do that.

Screenshots and Stuff

It would appear I like to use the word "stuff" a lot in my posts.  Perhaps I should use a thesaurus next time I decide to write up a post...  Yesterday a good friend of mine that runs his own forum (http://s15.zetaboards.com/CRF/index/) went back and visited some of the older threads that are lurking around there and found the "Virtual Photography" thread.  That was our go-to place if we had taken screenshots from games and wanted to share them with others on the site.  After going back and looking at the thread he told me that I had take some pretty sweet screenshots from Halo and posted them.  I'll admit, they are some of my better shots I have taken from Halo over the years.  Especially the ones from ODST; the lighting of that game is perfect for screenshots at times.

Speaking of screenshots...here are some that I have taken recently.  Most of them will be from that ODST game I mentioned earlier, a couple from Halo 4 probably and maybe one or two from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.



Interesting how placing the camera in an explosion can change the look.  Simple effect, yet I've always liked it.

This One Goes to 135

I'm getting creative with titles for these posts aren't I?  No?  I didn't think so, but it has only taken me three or four years to (eventually) publish 135 posts of random musings.  A lot of stuff has been happening with me lately; mainly in the terms of Grifball, but still.

The GGL season is over mostly (minus the championship game I think) but on the upside, the Aces made it into the playoffs again despite a very...weird season for us.  We got eliminated in our first game, which it was a sad way to end the season really.  Especially since a few days beforehand Joker announced that the Aces would not be returning next season.  It was a tough season for us this time around as we had to use subs in all of the games we played, and most of the games we ended up forfeiting to begin with because we could not field enough players.

After Joker told us what was going to happen to the Aces once this season had ended, I had no idea what I was going to do.  I knew I was going to play another season in the GGL at least, albeit on a new team if I could find one.  I thought of a couple captains of others team I could go to and see if they'd be looking for new players after this season was over, but I was going to wait until the season was officially over.  Before the playoffs had started though, one person took the initiative to ask me if I wanted to join their team for next season.  Perfect Demise had asked me over Twitter if I would like to join Sarge's Squad for the next GGL season as they would be looking for some more players.  Not exactly knowing if I'd play for a team next season I instantly said yes.  So next season I shall be the punching bag for Sarge's Squad.

Wait, I Can Explain!

Strange title, I know.  Lately I've been obsessed with Grifball (as always really) and that has been making me think as to why do I enjoy it so much?  Is it the fact that it is one of the few custom created gametypes in the Halo franchise I truly enjoy?  Is it the fact I'm good at it?  Perhaps the community that surrounds this largely popular game mode?

In part, it is a combination of all of this...well minus the part I mentioned that I'm good at it.  I'm still bad on my own.  When I first played Grifball back in 2008 (I think that's when it was) I was hooked almost instantly.  I had my reservations about it at first; the fact I was constantly getting betrayed by my teammates was rather annoying and I always wanted to score, so when I didn't score I got annoyed at that as well.  As the first few years of playing it went by I started to realize that scoring wasn't everything and betrayals were going to happen.  Betrayals still frustrated me, but only for the reason that they happened when we needed a carrier kill at our plant...and I easily would have had the kill.

Looking Back...

I don't know why I always start posts on this place with trying to reason away my absence.  Simply put, since my last post a lot of good (and an equal amount of bad) has happened to me in my life.  Last year I had decided to join the staff of Inside View Gaming, got a position on the review team and then became their community manager.  Almost one year later I'm still helping out around there and I have no plans on leaving any time soon.

The Return to Bowl Games

Ah yes, one of my favorite times of the year; where all the college football conference title games and bowl games are coming into full swing.  This means my annual series of blog posts entitled "Bowl Bound" is now returning!  This year I decided to add the conference title games to the mix as a lot of these decide where each team goes in terms of bowl games.

Moving onward, on todays agenda is the MAC title game which is pitting the 11-1 (8-0 in conference play) Kent State Golden Flashes against the Northern Illinois Huskies with an identical record.
After that, are the games that will decide who wins the Big East title.  The actual games that will determine this are Louisville at Rutgers and Cincinnati at Connecticut.  In order to make things not as confusing as possible, here is how the Big East title winner will be decided and who gets the BCS bowl bid courtesy of CBS Sports.

Scenario: Rutgers wins the outright Big East title with a win over Louisville on Thursday. If Louisville wins the conference title is shared with Syracuse (and possibly Cincinnati). In the case of a three- or four-team tiebreaker Louisville would earn the Big East's BCS bid.