The Professional Gamer - June 6, 2016

Hello readers and welcome to another installment of The Professional Gamer.  I hope you all had a good Memorial Day.  I spent my morning running the Bolder Boulder.  Then, most of the rest of the day was spent recovering from the race.  I had a decent time this year, especially considering how much my training was interrupted this year due to a number of other life events. During the rest of the week, I spent most of my free time this week reading, but also finished watching Golden Boy with my friends.

Let's start this week with discussing Golden Boy, which wins the award for the most raunchy anime that my wife enjoys to watch.  Kintaro is a rather terrible perv, but in the end he also has a drive to do good for those around him.  I want to really hate him for his lecherous ways, but in the end he tries to make sure that things turn out well for everybody around him, so it is hard to be too hard on him.

In book news, this week I've been reading Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, which is basically the big book of how to run a meeting for a voluntary society, club, or business.  It's very interesting to see a general set of rules that can be adapted to many different types of organizations.  I wanted to read the book due to getting involved in my local political party, since parliamentary procedure is big part of the official meetings that we have.  In the end, it makes me wonder if I should have more structure in my day to day interactions with lots of people.  Also, I just want to start a club so that I can practice with all the finicky procedural stuff.  Does that make me too much of a nerd?

Anyway, today is my birthday! Yay! Happy Birthday to me!  Have a great week, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - May 16, 2016

After all of the weird stuff that happened last week, I'm happy to have had a more normal schedule this week.  I was able to play some video games, had a day off of work, and went to the theater.  In all, a lot of fun this week.

In Elite: Dangerous, I've got my Type 7 Transport equipped with all the best modules.  I feel like I've run into a lot of bugs involving interdiction, and ended up getting blasted up by a lot of NPC jerks.  I've re-tooled my ship to focus on defense, rather than offense.  Considering that running is the more practical option for me in most cases.  I should be in a good place to start running a regular trading route to pick up the credits that I need in order to get to the next ship.

For those not in the Denver area, I may need to provide some background information about what I did in the middle of this week.  Devotchka is a local band (who has had some level of national success), and they are known locally for annual concerts with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.  This year, they partnered with the Denver Center theater company to perform Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.  And, with only a few performances left, I managed to get in to see the show.  It was a whole lot of fun.  I was really impressed with the performances, and had a lot of fun watching it.

That's all for this week.  Have a great week and game on! 

The Professional Gamer - May 9, 2016

Hello readers! This has been a very intense week on the more personal scene.  Crystal ended up in the ER (she’s fine) and I had a job interview.  Between the two, and trying to make up for the time I missed from work, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to do anything for myself.  During most of the evenings I ended up watching various HGTV shows with Crystal, since those are a bit of a comfort show for both of us.

We had our second session of Traveler this weekend, which involved some interstellar travel, trade negotiations, and problematic passengers.  We had a bit of a time sorting out all of the rules, but I think we are gradually getting a handle on it.  I’m now on the hunt for some simple apps that will simplify some of the dice rolling (looking at you trading rules).  We’ll be taking the weekend off for Mother’s Day, and I have no idea which players will come the weekend after that, so we may end up playing a completely different game.

Also, I am now the proud owner of a Type 7 Heavy in Elite: Dangerous.  It’s a bit of a beast to handle, but it can carry such a huge amount of cargo.  And, although it is not the fastest profit, I’m opting to do multi-hop trading.  Mostly so that I can get to see more of the inhabited galaxy.  In fact, I equipped a discovery scanner in place of my smallest cargo rack, primarily because I’m visiting systems that I’ve never been to before, and it would be hard to find the stations without the navigation data.  As an added bonus, I can sell the scan data to help subsidize the original purchase cost.  At this point, I’m planning to sink some money to upgrade my ship with top of the line frameshift drive (to maximize profit/hour) and thrusters (a valuable quality of life upgrade).

That’s all that I have for this week.  I hope everyone had a great free comic book day.  Have a great week, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - May 2, 2016

Hello readers!  I’ve managed to have a week with a more normal work load, and therefore had some more time to enjoy myself.  To start with, I’ve spent a few more hours in Elite: Dangerous and manage to get myself to within about 2 million credits of my new ship goal.  I only need about another hour to get myself to my goal, and start the process of searching the galaxy for my new ship and all the equipment that I want for it.  Then, I’ll be off to make a living as a bulk trader: stocking up on goods in one station and hoping that I can make a profit on them by carrying them to another system.  I may keep my existing ship so that I have an option to go back to if I find that I’m not enjoying life as a merchant.

In other space news, we had the first session of our Traveler game this past weekend.  Everything seemed to go fairly well.  Most of the session was dedicated to role-playing the characters and introducing the world, with only a few skill checks to see how things went.  Next session should get us much more involved in the rules system, and therefore have a much greater chance to bog us down with making sure that we’ve learned how to play the darn thing.  I’m expecting the players to spend some time negotiating commodities prices, searching for delivery jobs, and booking passengers on their vessel before heading off to one of the neighboring systems.  Who knows, we might have a space combat.  But that will depend on the random encounters table.

And finally, I’ve discovered a rather bizarre little anime to watch.  The show is called Dagashi Kashi, and the plot is a bit hard to explain.  To start, “dagashi” are inexpensive Japanese snacks, sort of like penny candies, both in terms of size and price, as well as a degree of sentimentality attached to them.  The show centers around Kokonotsu, a middle school boy who dreams of becoming a manga artist.  His father, Yo, owns a dagashi shop in a small town, and wants Kokonotsu to take over for him.  Hotaru, daughter of a snack manufacturer, comes to the town to recruit Yo.  Yo says that he can’t leave unless Kokonotsu agrees to take over the shop.  Hotaru agrees to convince Kokonotsu to take over the shop in exchange for Yo coming to work for her father’s company.  Hotaru is passionate about the snacks, and spends most of the show trying to kindle Kokonotsu’s passion for dagashi.  In spite of this somewhat odd and convoluted plot, much of the show is basically a love letter to the dagashi themselves.  So, if you are interested in the niche world of Japanese snack foods, it’s a fun watch.

That’s all for this round.  Have a great week and game on!

The Professional Gamer - April 25, 2016

This has been another week with a lot of commitments at work.  But, I've managed to spend a fair amount of time with virtual jobs this week as well.  I've spent a lot of time this past week playing Fantasy Life.  At this point, I'm trying get myself to master rank in all of the professions.  At this point, I've got about 4 professions to that rank, and should be able to get the rest in a few more weeks.

I've also been flying around a bit more in my Cobra MkIII in Elite: Dangerous, and am now within about 3 million credits of my goal.  I'm excited to be getting to a new ship, mostly just for the novelty of it.  I'm also looking to start doing a big trade loop through inhabited space, rather than doing a single circular loop.  I won't have the armaments of my current ship, but will be able to haul a huge amount of trade goods instead.

Finally, I've found some time to start fleshing out my homebrew D&D campaign.  We've had a long break from playing, but I am anticipating some playing time in the future.  And now, I have to plan some adventures for our Traveler game.

Have a great week and game on!

The Professional Gamer - April 18, 2016

This has been the week where I had something scheduled to do every evening.  In spite of that, I managed to play a lot of video games this week.  However, I only managed to watch a very small amount of anime.  Anyway, read on to find out what I've been doing for the past week.

Let's start off with the shortest discussion.  I'm down to the final episode of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash.  At this point, I'm expected the series to end one of two ways: either everybody lives or everybody dies.  I'll probably find out next week.  I also ended up showing Golden Boy to some friends.  I'd forgotten exactly how lewd this series was.  It's so bad; but it's also a lot of fun.  And the friends enjoyed it too!

While I was waiting at some of my meeting commitments, I played some Fantasy Life.  Once I finished Ocarina of Time last week, I needed to find something else to play.  And so, I've spent a bunch of effort on increasing some of my crafting and gathering professions.  To some degree, its a lot of work, but I'm having fun with it.

Finally, I've continued working towards a new ship in Elite: Dangerous, but don't feel like I've made a huge amount of progress this week.  To be honest, 2 million credits is nothing to sneeze at, but I've still got another 9 million to go.

That's all I've got for this week.  See you next time and game on!

The Professional Gamer - April 11, 2016

I feel like I just keep having very busy weeks, but I'm still managing to have a little fun on the side,  I've watched a little TV and played some video games.  Read on to find out what I've been doing.

First, I've watched a few more episodes of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash.  The series has been slow going for a few reasons.  The violence is rather brutal and the character relationships are nuanced and requires a high degree of attention.  I'm glad that after some of the initial pain in the series, that things are going better for the main characters.  I'm constantly worried that everything is going to go downhill again at some point soon.

Some of you may be aware that Nintendo released their new social network platform Miitomo this past week.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.  It feels like Nintendo has combined the typical social platform with a game.  Also, lots of questions.  Kinda like doing speed dating or a network event.

Speaking of Nintendo, I finally went back and finished my playthrough of Ocarina of Time on my 3DS.  I'd left myself at a point where I could basically have explored Ganon's tower and finished the game.  I don't recall what the circumstance that led me to leaving my save file in such a state.  I'm just glad that I managed to finish it now,

Lastly, I've been playing a little more Elite: Dangerous. I feel like I've got my ship fairly well equipped., since I was able to take down 2 NPC's without any aid.  Which is considerably better than I've had previously.  And, I'm about halfway to earning my next goal ship. Yay!

The Professional Gamer - April 4, 2015

Hi everyone, sorry for no article last week, but with extra work hours and DINK, I didn't have the time to do much for fun, let alone write an article about it.  Anyways, lets talk about what I've been doing this week.

First, I've managed to find a few spare hours to dedicate to Elite: Dangerous, and am a bit closer to getting to a new ship.  I'm having a hard time deciding whether to buy merchant ship (most likely a Type 7) or an explorer (most likely an Asp).  At this point, flying out into the black sounds like a nice change of pace compared to flying between stations selling stuff.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming DLC for Hyrule Warriors, and in anticipation have been playing a little bit more, trying to finish up all of the adventure maps, and level up the characters a little bit more.  I'm not sure if I'll buy the Game Boy version of the game, but since a portion of the DLC will be available for the WiiU only, that should be a lot of fun.

Finally, I've been watching Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, which might be the most depressing version of .hack//SIGN that I've seen to date.  There was a weird amount of fanservice in the first few episodes.  But that seems to have died off as we have had some more serious events transpire.

That's all I've got for this week.  We'll catch you again soon.

The Professional Gamer - March 21, 2016

This has been a week full of emotions.  As you may have noted in my article last week, I started watching Your Lie in April last week.  I finished up the series on Thursday of this week, and was pretty much left an emotional wreck at the end of it.  Although emotional draining, the series was really great.  It has a really uplifting message about artistic endeavor and recovery after trauma.  There were a few cases where I felt that the series pushed a little too hard to produce an emotional response.  For the majority of the series, however, the pathos generated was genuine.  The animation was of very good quality through the entire series, with some great use of computer animation to produce the instruments, especially the piano.  There are some great sweeping shots going the from the stage area with Arima at the piano, to inside the piano showing the action of the hammers and dampers.  And they blend the CG well with the traditional animation.

Overall, I recommend the series.  But keep in mind that it could leave you emotionally drained.  Personally, I recommend following up Your Lie in April with a large dose of Joy of Painting with Bob Ross.