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.

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.
 

Because...Grifball and Minecraft

Would you look at this, a post that isn't two months after my last one!  I do believe I am getting into the habit of posting on a regular basis.  As of lately I have been busy planning a bunch of cool stuff for Inside View and working a little bit behind the scenes on getting ideas up and running.  We have our second game night coming up on Minecraft; our first one was on Forza 4.  We also have our own clan that we started up recently, you can find out some info about that here.  There's the contact information for one of our clan leaders and my own in case you want that also.  Lastly, we have our own Grifball team we have started.  We plan on gathering people now and working on some basic team fundamentals; then once Halo 4 is released entering in all kinds of leagues and tournaments.

I've been working on on planning some details for a Halo 4 campaign challenge once the game is released for IVG as well.  I know that skulls are returning in the game thanks to the achievement list that was released a few weeks ago; but I do not know whether or not campaign scoring returning.  I hope it does otherwise I'm going to have to figure out a makeshift scoring system to tally results...and needless to say math never was one of my best subjects.  There's still plenty of time for me to find out if its returning...and work on one if it isn't.

I've also been playing a bunch of Minecraft when I have had the time to game.  It's interesting looking back at the first "shelter" I made.  I had no clue what I was doing so it was actually made out of a bunch of sand and the living space was very...cramped.

Small living space eh?

Community Content

Ah yes, the usual "it's been a while" rambling.  Well, it has been a while hasn't it?  Anyways, I've been busy a lot lately with the Inside View.  Why?  I've been trying to help brainstorm ideas to get our community off the ground.  From simply giving ideas of articles to post, things for the other staff members to look into and getting a Halo themed team off the ground.  About a week later I was just talking with the owner about an idea we had floating around and after giving him my input, I get another email back.  This time, this email is offering me a spot on the management team as their Community Manager.  Knowing I would be able to do this, I gladly accepted the offer.

We have some pretty neat stuff planned for the near future, so keep an eye on our main page.  Plus, why don't you sign up for our forum; we have a few game nights coming up that I'm sure you would enjoy.  And I would love to play with some of my blog readers from here.

I am going to wrap up this short post with a video I took from Minecraft.  Yes, I broke down and bought Minecraft; I remember the time when I used to say "I'm never going to buy that game as it looks pointless."  Well it's good if you have a few minutes or a few hours to waste.  My world I thought sucked at first, but going back to it a few days ago I found some pretty good stuff.  Also, I hate cobblestone...


Yeah, it's not supposed to be snowing on one half of the house and raining on the other...  Oh, and my house (which is the one shown in the video) has a second story to it now.  It's not so bland anymore.  I'm also thinking of doing a bunch more to it, but the massive amount of dirt around it needs to go away.  There's also a river (not seen in the video as it wasn't there until this past Friday) on the side where I am standing at the start of the video.  No idea what I'm going to do with that as of now, but I'll figure something out.

Bound for Carnage

Yes, it's been a little while hasn't it?  Surprisingly not a lot has happened with me in the meantime, I am still planning on doing the idea I mentioned in my previous post.  I have yet to start them though as I have been busy, but this did give me time to think of another idea!
You remember the original Xbox right?  No?  I'm disappointed in you reader, not really.  Anyways, as you may or may not know most of those games are backwards compatible on the 360; meaning I can take original Xbox games and play them on the 360.  So what does any of this stuff have to do with me?  Well, nothing in particular really except for the fact that I am going to take an original Xbox game, play through it and reminisce on all the amazing times.  Once that is accomplished I will talk about the game a little bit and what made it such a classic for me.  I also plan on giving you some pretty pictures to look at (aka screenshots) and even capturing a few minutes of footage to showcase what the game was like.  The only problem I am really having with this is I can't decide which game to play first.  I was thinking of leaning towards the first Mechassault (since it was my first game), but I had also been thinking about the second Mechassault game as I really love it.  However....Mercenaries has also crossed my mind as well as a few other games I used to love playing all the time.

As I mentioned earlier, I still plan on doing what I mentioned in my previous post.  I just have yet to start it as I have been diligently working on some things with the staff over at IVG.  We have some huge plans in the works regarding getting our own Halo themed community up and running.  Right now we're looking for contributors who would be willing to deliver consistent Halo themed content for us.

I know this is a short post, but it's late here and I don't have too much to discuss.  I will leave you with my first montage I did though!  It was done in Forza Motorsport 4 (I would have done a Halo one, but couldn't find clips that made me happy) and involves tons of crashes and carnage.  It lacks a proper name but I think Project CARnage sounds pretty decent based on its theme.  The editing is fairly simple and I think I went a tad bit transition happy as well; but I am happy with the end results.
So I present to you, Project CARnage by StoredGrunt360 (aka me!)

Anyways, that is all my friends.  I hope to have my first "Look Back" post up either this week or next, depends on when I am able to get it done.  If I don't have it up this week, I'm positive I'll have my first series of videos regarding NCAA Football 12 up.  It'll be from my second trip to the national title game as Illinois...I'm not sure who I was playing in it though.  I think it may have been Boise State, but I am not sure honestly.  Oh!  And I may start working on a Forged map in Halo: Reach next week if I can.  If I do, I'll keep you updated on regular basis.

So I Heard You Like Ideas?

I know, the correct internet meme is "so i herd u liek..."  Well I'm one for semi-proper grammar when writing usually, so no internet correct-ness here!  The past few days I have been brainstorming ideas to kick-start the activity of my blog and for my YouTube channel.

As you know I did purchase a capture card about a month ago, anyways my idea is this.  I've been wanting to get back into my NCAA Football 12 Dynasty I have in progress and I have thought about capturing the awesome highlights that happen during the season.  Then at the end of said season compiling all of them into a small (I mean small) countdown montage showcasing the best of the best highlights of the previous season.  If I can pull of the idea smoothly, I think it might be cool and actually work.  My second idea regarding my in progress Dynasty would involve recording the biggest games of the season that I would play.  For instance, say my Illini are ranked the top team in the nation and are taking on the second ranked Cornhuskers of Nebraska (which is not a Big Ten team...sorry 'Huskers fans reading this) in the Big Ten championship game.  Since it's a conference championship game between the nations two best teams, I think it could easily qualify as one of those "Games to watch" kind of things.  What I would do is take and record each quarter of the game and upload them to my YT channel so you could see it if you wanted to.  I think it would be a cool idea and it could show you how much I dislike the other Big Ten teams.

My third idea comes based off of my "Bowl Bound" series, I'm going to take the biggest games of the week (and probably ones from Illinois' season) run a simulation on those and post the results.  Plus with my good 'ol capture card I can either record the enitre game and post it or of the highlights from the game.  I think I might do the latter option though, I have to be mindful of my internet connection as other family members use it and I really don't want to wait four to five hours for an entire movie to upload.  I don't know, this idea I'll have to scratch out some more details before college football season actually starts.

My final idea I was brainstorming was already in existence...  Yep, I was thinking of an idea I already have done something with.  See at the top of the paragraph where I mentioned the Bowl Bound series of posts I did?  If not, I basically took all of the college football bowl games for the 2011-2012, which the bowl season lasted from about late December to early January; then simulated all of the games I could.  After I had the simulation for one done, I would post a picture of the score and called it my "prediction".  I ended the bowl season with a 17-15 record with three forfeits.  Those forfeits were only because I forgot there was a game on or couldn't get to it.  Once it ended, I was actually really happy with my final results and enjoyed doing the simulations each day.  Granted it did get a little hectic with keeping up with the games later on in the bowl period as there were so many games in one day at times.  So yes, the "Bowl Bound" series was an idea I thought of (again...) and will return this Winter for the 2012-2013 college football season showcasing the bowl games.

That's what I've mainly been up to lately, I hope that I am able to kick-start the activity on my blog; especially now since I've joined the wonderful staff of the Inside View.  I'm still going to post about other games, I'm not going to focus solely NCAA Football 12 from here on out.  So if you came across this blog and expected Halo related posts, you'll still get them.  That and my general banter that I always end up typing up instead of a concise post.

Oh yeah and carnage.